The Antipode and The Dualist

In The Antipode and the Dualist a man and a woman engage in a feigned sword fight back and forth across an enclosed garden. Off camera a verbal duel of wills between director Gunilla Josephson and videographer Lewis DeSoto sabotages the linear narrative arc of dramatic presentation. The potential for narrative competes with a Marxist dialectic favoring the creative process as the truth of the matter.

The sword fight moves between the left and right projection and is outlined by a hot pink frame. At first the frame exposes a sliver of the duel in the garden and then opens up gradually revealing the full picture. The duel is unedited and lasts the duration of the actual rehearsal/performance. A monitor in the center contains a lush apple tree gently moving in the breeze. The dual digitally moves from left to right invisibly crossing the tree. Red graphic arrows emphasise the directions of the sword fight. The images also contain subtitles of the phonetics of the mouth sounds of the duellists.

Each of the 3 video channels has their own soundtrack. The left channel contains the sound of metal swords clashing. The middle channel contains Italian baroque music the right channel contains the argument between director and cameraperson. Viewers must move between channels to hear all three soundtracks.

I grafted my right arm, half my brain and half of my marrow onto another stem, for I thought we would grow together and knit ourselves into a perfect tree.
August Strindberg

* Please note that the word dualist is a name for a person who adheres to a dualist world view and the word duellist refers to the 2 people who are sword fighting.

TECHNICAL SPECIFICATIONS
HD video projector
3 pairs of headphones