Narcissus & Echo
The Concept
This piece is a combination of sculpture, animation and performance. Essentially, our goal is to explore the fundamental difference between the performing and the plastic arts. For better and for worse, the performer is inherently dependent on their own presence; Their work simply does not exist without them. Like Narcissus, it is electrifying - yet temporary.
As a plastic artist, it is my privilege to not be present when my work is observed - it is independent of me and must therefore bear praise, criticism or ridicule on its own while I go and have a drink with friends. My work is not me. Like Echo, my work is everlasting, but weak, it is an imitation, it is not real. Could a sculpture ever have the magnetic power of a living, breathing human being in the midst of their creation? This is the basis for our attempt to combine and mirror these two sides of art.
In Practice
The exhibition consists of two mediums - video and sculpture, with live performance events throughout the period of the exibition.
The video consists of a dancer performing a five part piece, alongside animated “echoes” of her dance. Each part of the dance is animated in classic stop-motion based on a clay sculpture. Once the dancer finishes each part, she is replaced by an animation "echo" of that part. The live performer dancer with echos until she has completed the fifth and last part, she then leaves the frame (or stage) and we are left with the animations alone, an imitation of her - weak, yet everlasting.
If the project comes to fruition, we can then try to create a live performance online as well, broadcasting from a suitable space.
