Interlude  2003

​PAL, colour, sound
Duration sequence: 3 min.

Interlude was filmed at the Staatstheater Stuttgart, Germany just prior to the 2003 invasion of Iraq. The work juxtaposes thermal imaging footage of the audience observing a play with live footage of the preparation for a protest action staged by members of the theatre’s ensemble in the foyer. As the play and the preparations for the protest overlap each other the two different spaces, auditorium and foyer, are observed interchangeably thus creating a juxtaposition of parallel space and parallel time. At the end of the evenings play on leaving the auditorium the audience encounters the live action, staged as a protest against the impending war with Iraq, in the theatre’s foyer.
 

Interlude shows documentary footage of the protest in reportage style which echoes media images of war. As the performance on stage remains unseen, the actual play is replaced with a different kind of spectacle that of war and violence. Thermal imaging cameras are used for a variety of applications, most notably for the detection of people in collapsed buildings. Using a thermal imaging camera to film the audience inside the auditorium implicates the spectators in the dangers of war. Yet when the audience emerges from the dark space of the auditorium it is as if the transition signals a return not to the real but to impending destruction.