And Now One for the Heavens
KINGS ARTIST-RUN, June 2022 + Adelaide FESTIVAL CENTRE SCREEN Program, August 2022
Single Channel Video Work. 7min
And Now One for the Heavens explores how imaginary worlds are created and broken as part of meaning-making and the search for belonging.
Set inside a car, my father, a professional clown and now an old man, methodically builds layers of makeup to complete his costume. The evening light, and the close-up framing capture a ragged melancholy– a quality that has remained part of the clown tradition since the 19th Century. The softened and sentimentalised nature of this short video work portrays an insight to the everyday realities of artists with an intimacy that allows the viewer to step behind the illusory veil.
The slowness and meditative nature of this video work highlights the ritual of transformation that is inherently part of theatre and performance. Playwright, director and theorist, Erik Ehn postulates that the world is imaginary, and therefore art making is creating an imaginary world out of imaginary worlds. “The world of theatre is as phenomenal as the world itself. The world, in order to continue creating, to refresh its meaning, has to constantly break. That is where spirit or God is. It’s in the breaks, the fractures. Meaning – the unknowable thing – is in the moment of breaking.”
Director of Photography: Ben Golotta, Repeater Productions
Performer: David Cronin
