tableaux sessions

a video operetta composed of
tableaux vivants and still lives.

lenght: 3 x 03`34

for High quality go to vimeo

#3

STILL LIFE

Dear mother,
……., fare well

Dear mother,
don’t miss me,
don’t cry,

simply pretend, I am travelling
…… and will be back soon
dear waiting mother

yours, Martha

------------------------------------

LAUDATIO
by Professor Dan Fern

Digital technologies have increasingly enabled artists and musicians to break down the barriers between what were once clearly-defined processes and genres. With the software that's available, almost anyone who has a reasonable grasp of those elements which constitute multimedia productions - sound, music, words, images - can construct works of considerable technical sophistication.

What sets Dan Kluge's work apart from that which is being routinely produced by digital artists is demonstrated brilliantly by these three new works.

Sure, they're technically impressive; Kluge has a detailed grasp of the tools at his disposal, developed over years of careful experimentation. What he also has, though, and what makes his work so distinctive, is an abundance of other qualities that no software can provide, and which no amount of technical competence can hide in those that lack them: a wonderful sense of rythmn and of sonic texture; a rare eye for visual poetry; a great sense of humour; a keen and sympathetic ability to reflect what's called 'the human condition'....why and how people do the things they do. Kluge's works are funny, perceptive, engaging and always visually beautiful. But over and above all of these qualities there's another, undefinable, ingredient. Let's call it magic, since that's what it is - that extra sense of a door being opened into another place, a parallel universe where anything can happen, and does.

In the three pieces which go to make up the 'Tableaux Session', we can see all of these qualities. But another question we need to ask is: what is the nature of the work we're seeing? One of the most fascinating aspects of the digital revolution over the past 10 years or so has been the possibility to create new forms, which may have some of the characteristics of traditional genres such as movies, television, live concerts, opera, musical-theatre and so on, but increasingly these characteristics can be hybridised into something new, which is more difficult to define, and for which there is no history.  

From the moment we saw Dan Kluge's work for the first time as an applicant to the RCA, we knew we had something special on our hands; one of those people who emerge from time to time who have the creative imagination to step outside of what's known and to go off into unknown territory. It's been an enormous pleasure for me to watch him grow and develop, and to feel that we here at the RCA were able to help him on his way.

Professor Dan Fern
Head of School of Communications
Royal College of Art
London

------------------------------------