Tasked with thinking about a suitable metaphor for the IDEL course (or rather my experience of the IDEL course) I imagined myself at a mixing desk. A little like this:
Sitting alone with an array of tools at my fingertips, with the recommended texts represented here by the original audio recordings. Each selection on the mixer would produce a different texture, a different quality, would reveal something new. The near infinitesimal number of possible outputs was exciting, and simultaneously overwhelming. This simultaneousness also struck a chord. If I was to try and distil the main theme of the course in one word it would be “and”. Recognising that something can be both present and distant, closed and open, transparent and hidden, has been essential to my understanding of the themes raised.
Except I’m not really alone am I? I have a personal tutor to guide me. And a team of tutors who are guiding the whole cohort through the myriad of texts, themes, approaches. And then there’s my peers. I know they’re there because I can see them interacting on the discussion boards.
So, I tried to think through the mixing desk metaphor a little further and thought about 59 Productions Live Cinema performances. Here is a short video about the process of making a “Live Cinema” performance:
What I find fascinating about this approach to live performance is the technique (simultaneously depicting the scene and showing the artificial creation of that scene) and how in making transparent the artificiality of the image doesn’t diminish the image but adds to it. It is able to create multiple, synchronous realities.
I think the metaphor continues to work when we consider the IDEL course as a performance. Each instance of the course is a new performance, with new actors (students) – all directed by the IDEL teaching team. I am simultaneously both an actor on stage and the mixing desk operator, selecting which shots to include in the projection.
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