Toy Factory Fire

In this audio-visual installation, a narrator triggers electronic music, audio samples and video sequences to generate a world which is part documentary and part dream-like hallucination.

At the heart of the piece is recorded testimony (interviews conducted in Thailand by artists engaged in the development of the work) from people whose lives have been deeply affected by the Kader factory fire and its aftermath. Their stories are interwoven with the stream of consciousness narrative of a businessman en route to Bangkok. Jet lag and a violent storm combine to plunge the man into a state of confusion and near-panic in which he recalls witnessing the catastrophe at Kader first-hand.

Talking House has a long history of producing innovative and unique stories based on real people's testimony. Over the past few years Talking House has produced several verbatim theatre plays, Gasmen and Ropewalk were also performed at Toitū. Toy Factory Fire extends this practice. It represents a broadening of our area of interest, from the local to the more universal and global. At the same time, although we will still use recorded testimony in performance, in this instance the speech will be a translation from the original, with the sense of the Thai speakers being present, visibly, through video, and/or aurally, as audible voices playing underneath the spoken translation.

This project brings together a group of local artists in the creation of a new work that will extend the practices of all involved. It offers Kerian Varaine, composer and sound artist, the opportunity to work with other practitioners to develop and apply his skills in new areas of performance. It gives actor Simon O’Connor the chance to work closely with music, video and electronically generated soundscapes as a fundamental part of performance material. For Richard Huber, the work brings new design and directorial challenges in terms of knitting together disparate artistic forms into a single, multidisciplinary whole, where each separate element can contribute equally and collectively to the generation of meaning in the work.

Fringe Tags; Performance Art, Sound/Audio, Theatre