The Other Monster on the Mountain

Trekking the long way up the hill from the Other Troy this Saturday I went through campus to see MTAA's All Raise This Barn and saw the saddest pile of lumber and tarp littering the library's lawn in front of half a shack. What had happened? Hundreds of votes, and the one thing not up for discussion was "Can a barn be built in a day?" Yes if you're a community of Amish barn builders, but maybe not if you're an underequiped art installation in an apathetic, overworked university. The idea was interesting, but the whole community interaction process seemed to have a big question mark hovering over it. And in the end, the truth came out. Community and interaction do not seem to be the ties that bind Troy, RPI and EMPAC together. It is hard not to ask EMPAC, who is it here for? Who is it serving? Performers? Art enthusiasts? RPI students? The Troy community?

Filament, the three day performance art festival hosted by EMPAC advertised filling its numerous theaters and atriums with performance and video. I planned on taking advantage of the offer they have, allowing RPI students free admission before shows to see the Live Shorts. Although I could not take my boyfriend due to the exorbitant $35 full pass or one time $15 ticket fee for non-students, and wondered who else in the Troy community was deterred by the price. I got there with plenty of time to see the installations in the lobby and the mezzanine. Yanira Castro's Wilderness was an impressive and delicate interactive sound installation avoided by the sparse viewers for most of the day, unaware that they were meant to take off their shoes and run around the rubber filled arena, triggering the simple beauty of the piece. It took the few children to throw caution into the wind and take a leap, but even then, the simple arrangements were muffled by the overpowering architecture and acoustics of EMPAC, making the connections between sound and movement unclear.

In the vast sterile mezzanine was a sparse showcase of about 20 past EMPAC residents each allotted a square foot cubicle to display their achievements. Many of the interactive performances were untranslatable in such a meager space, but some managed to create a feeling of intimacy with headphones. Interestingly enough, Daniel Teige, the artist unable to complete his composition during his residence seemed to have the greatest success in his display box. The simple 5 sided plexiglass cube with dual low-tech tape recorders playing unsynchronized soundscapes of the viewers discretion made for a fun, inviting piece, not quite squashed by the blank open building. Unfortunately, the only indication that the viewers were allowed to play with the tapes was in the program and many viewers wandered away without understanding their potential involvement.

At 5 minutes to, I made my way to the box-office to learn that the show was sold out and noticed a few students with all access passes who had been told the same thing. All of the viewers filled into the smallest theater and I was left alone in the lobby. I went into the main theater and heard my steps cruelly echo the 1200 empty seats as the 5 audience members turned to stare back at me and the little panda way in the distance did his mascot victory dance.

The evening performance of Wilderness in the darker, more intimate setting proved less exclusive. Much much much less exclusive to the point of begging the startled and uncomfortable audience for interaction. Many were willing and happy to play along, but few seemed to belong and contribute to the piece. Many audience members stood wondering where to look or who to look at. There is as long a history of interactive performance as there is of music and dance. The musicians play, the dancers dance and anyone present who feels moved will move. Music is that powerful. Interactive performance, while interesting and compelling, is not necessarily so. We as audience members can be moved by the spirit or a good old fashioned beat, but in contemporary performance art, participation is not a given. It requires an intimacy and a feeling of belonging, that your contributions will be incorporated. In an open lobby of a contemporary museum, it is hard to make your mark in a way that seems sincere.

The performance started out with an old eccentric man begging for attention, calling on the resonance of the Earth of a black rubber insulated sensor ridden arena which responded to his movements, no matter how odd. As the audience stood there, unsure of how to move or where to go, we understood that our contributions were in our footsteps, not our gestures. We move and make the accompaniment. The contribution of the interactive sound component written by masses seemed much greater than that of one man or one piano.

The mob could not comply with the man's physical requests, because we view all old men with the skepticism of insanity. He stalked off stage, watching wistfully as his 4 young and beautiful memories imitated his eccentricities, but without the same musical response of the ground. Whether accidental or not, the silence which met the young quartet amplified its superficiality and the lack of our possibility for a meaningful contribution. The audience watched the dancers attempts of eccentricity amused, for we will never truly believe the fall of the young and beautiful, but merely tried to play along, following their foreign cues, agreeing to participate in their silly games. When the performers finally spoke to the audience in our own language and gave each other cues in theater speak, we realized the game was up. No one was believing this sham. This play. We were just here for amusement until it was over.