Is Staying in the New Going Out? (Absent Sitters Review)
Back in October 2020, I was in the audience in Absent Sitters a new art performance piece that was part of the 2020 York Mediale festival and sadly it was limited to only 100 participants. The show ran from the 21st until the 25th of October and was completely sold out.
But first what is York Mediale?, it’s an international media arts festival that celebrates York (That’s old York in the UK) as the UK’s first and only UNESCO Creative City of Media. It all started as an independent arts charity that was founded in 2014 to celebrate media arts.
It's a festival that takes place every two years with the first international media arts festival taking place over 10 days period in October 2018.
It was a roaring success With audiences of 65,000 and a further 91 million reached online, As well as bringing new commissions from leading artists to the city they provide opportunities for the best emerging talent to showcase their art.
I loved the 2018 festival and went to as many of the shows and exhibitions I could get to, the highlight for me was seeing Suzanne Ciani’s — Diva of the Diode show in St Michael le Belfrey church near York Minster, it was a brilliant concert with Suzanne allowing us to get up on stage to view her setup at close hand.
the 2020 festival was originally designed to take place from the 21–25 October 2020 but 2020 was not a normal year, so while the festival started on the 21st October some of it has continued into 2021. York Mediale are presenting six major new commissions, five of which are world premieres and one UK premiere, although only 4 appear on the website at the moment I’m guessing that the other two projects will be coming along sometime in the future.
So Absent Sitters, the website describes the show as, a virtual séance and an unsettling portrayal of culture in 2020 and a reflection on what we’ve missed, Absent Sitters is a digitally abstracted online audiovisual experience.
We are transported from our chair and through the screen to explore the missing performance. In this intimate, shared event, we are guided by a performer medium to investigate what is live performance? Are we live? Can we connect? And Who are we?
This piece is a collaboration with artist and filmmaker, Kit Monkman, the University of York, Music Department (UoYMD) the place where I created my 2012 album Deconstruction:Demolition:Re-invention (available on all streaming platforms)
and one of the UK’s most vital contemporary voices in electronic music — Gazelle Twin and if you haven’t checked out her albums she’s a must listen.
Once I’d signed up for the show, they sent me a postcard with the date and time of my performance on which was great and a nice touch.
The process started with a video zoom call briefing with Executive Producer Mark Carlin and we had to tweak the settings on the Zoom software to accept high-quality audio which was very straight forward and Mark was very helpful with those participants that were having trouble setting everything up
We were told that The Absent Sitters project has been in research and development over the course of 2020, and this is the first stage of an experiment.
The experience, which is 20 minutes long, features the first summoning of a live audio-visual creation from the team. In taking part in this experimental performance, we also help shape and define its next stages as our thoughts, feelings and responses will be integral to its future path. The performances took place over 20 different sessions (of which I was only required to ‘sit’ in on just one!) across five nights from 21st to the 25th of October. and feedback has been gathered, post-performance, through email and telephone/video call
Before the performance I needed to make sure I had the following:
- A dark room
- A stable broadband connection
- A good quality pair of stereo headphones
- A laptop or desktop computer
- Capable of running Zoom version 5.2.3
- Be free to join a pre-meeting with one of the Mediale team between Thursday 15th October and Tuesday 20th October
- Be free to join one experience between 7.30pm and midnight (UK time) during 21st — 25th Oct
We were to be transported from our chair and through the screen to explore the missing performance and in this intimate, shared event, we were guided by a performer medium and by taking part via video call, we become part of an online audio-visual experience that examines the power of ‘collective imagination’ and the importance of ‘presence/absence’ in a live event.
I certainly found the experience interesting and stimulating and I did feel part of the performance and not just an audience member, there was only 6 of us with our performer medium in the video call, the audio was more sound effects than music and the visuals had a haunted creepy feel although I never felt threatened, it was fascinating when my screen became red or bright white and I could see some of the other participants.
Rita our performer medium never spoke to us and there was a feeling of not quite knowing what was going on and it is certainly one of the most stimulating 20 minutes I’ve had this year but then I don’t get out much and once it was over I wanted to do it all again. I also wanted to know what the other participants thought about it but it all abruptly ended with the termination of the Zoom video call which was a shame because I wanted to applaud.
So well done York Mediale a fantastic show and some of the other exhibitions and projects are still available now so have a look at the website linked below.
If you’d like to know more I have prepared a video version of with blog with some footage of the performance
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