About Time Between Us

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by Fernando Rubio

About Time between Us
My pieces are a permanent manifesto on the way we find each other, and the space we occupy in relation to others. My work it?s a constant critique directed to the most dispersive aspects of our time; to our failed encounters and lost opportunities in discovering other people?s emotional life. Through stories, which include in their poetic level a reformulation of spaces and how we inhabit them, I attempt to enable?each time?a way of discovering what we can build, the scope of our affective power, the importance of silence and words, and also of the unknown. Thus poetry becomes political; it radiates possible ways to understand who we are, what our relational ties are, and what it is that we can do with all that in the present moment. In our time, with our time, with our place, in this place.
More about the piece:
Alfred Hitchcock defined as ?MacGuffin? that mysterious object of desire that leads the character to engage in different situations, without ever getting a clear idea of what that objective is. In this regard, both the decision and the reasons that lead the man of Time between Us to live in that house for five days is a mystery that the spectator can approach in different ways.
The entire story moves towards that temporal goal.
When defining the three units of dramatic action, Aristotle began with time. Then come space and action.
Time between Us aesthetically proposes, in relation to this, a conceptual idea in which all time, space and action have the same practical and symbolic value.
Any action or story is a cut in time. This story has two types of ?times?: the narrative and the expository one.
The first one defines the period in which the plot occurs. In this sense, Time between Us revises this lapse, putting together within the same framework the narrative and expository times; everything happens in those five days, in real time. By being a game of alterations, the act of repeating the story generates, within the narrative time of the piece, a gap to tell a story that exposes the concerns, desires and thoughts of the character, who is exploring the object of desire, as well as the acts and consequences that led him to that exploration.
When the construction of the story is taking place, the story itself is no longer happening in real time, allowing different time jumps in order to tell the journey that leads the protagonist to the place where he is, both a physical and emotional place.
Following the temporary reflection around this piece, there is another sign that is determined by the relationship the spectators have with the time of the piece.
While each situation to which the public is invited to participate has its predefined timing, the spectator has, at the same time, some control over the expository time, by deciding in which situations and in how many of them he/she wants to be involved in, as well as how he/she chooses?in the span of five days? to relate to the piece, therefore, assuming a role that stands closer to the piece in comparison to the role of a reader, who decides when a book begins and ends, beyond the natural extension (days/pages) that the piece proposes.
This is one of the central aspects of this performance, the fact of altering the traditional relationship the audience has with plays.
The temporary idea of the play also enables a dialogue with the unknown, suggesting a narrative construction of timelessness. Where does this man who inhabits the house come from? What happens to him after those 5 days? Where does the transformation proposed by this piece take him?
In this regard, that temporality enables a path for the actor?s transformation. The protagonist is the most implicated person due to his decision to leave his everyday life for 5 days, and because he continues to review both this decision and the concerns that led him to this action; all of this, in turn, generates a dramatic evolution that will modify his perception of time, his physical state, emotional state, his understanding of what he is doing, his memory, his mental and sonorous voice. Thus, all these elements amplify the possible variables that the work attempts to review and the potential of this type of experience, which doesn?t propose limits in its ongoing investigation.
Time between Us by Fernando Rubio, is the second part of the trilogy When We Were Kids, Time between Us and Everything Else.
There will be 25 spectators, coming in different sequences for an hour or more (depending on the situation they attend) who will be with the actor inside the house.
4 groups of 25 spectators per day will be able to be present for the scripted part of the piece.
Therefore, the actor will repeat 4 times a day the same situation. But he will also have a variable schedule including diverse activities and times for rest, moments when he leaves the space and moments when he shares the space; the spectators may or may not be present for all these activities. Some of they are: Meals, entertainment, walks along the periphery of the mobile home; the screening of films of his choice, or talks held with invited intellectuals.
The audience members will book in advance, and will be asked to share some type of personal information, so the actor can learn a bit about the people he is going to share some time with. People will be asked some singular questions and requested to bring a photo of them. The idea is to establish a different relationship between them. Similarly, a schedule of the man?s activities during those 5 days will be published and, for example, if on Day 4 at 7pm he is planning to watch the movie ?The Mother and the Whore? by Jean Eustache, spectators can attend the film with him. As a result, there will be more than one type of spectator assisting the performance.
The performance?s staging contains the demographic research and the study of behaviors, as well as the theorization of the hypothesis and thesis that the piece raises, in a search to expand these exercises in different cities, languages, idiosyncrasies, seasons, etc.
A register including diverse documents and texts will accompany the piece in order to generate a publication in the medium term.
The work explores our habits and transformations through the action of leaving the place we know to rethink our relationship with our surroundings and inhabit in days, hours, relationships, and space an ever-changing way.
At the same time the house, that spatial object, decentralized from its common location in cities, reflects and puts a strain on the physical and symbolic place we inhabit.
The idea of the open house is something that no longer corresponds to a tradition in almost any current cultures; hence the action that determines the movement of the object raises the same critical discussion than the movement of the man-actor from his place of comfort.
The actor will remain silent for many hours a day. The space will have some images and some written words, and a few objects. He will be writing permanently. Over the course of 5 days, the space will get covered with words, both inside and out.
A bed. A small table. A radio. A projector.
The man tells a story. He speaks of the time when he decided to leave the space he always belonged to. He will describe the places he inhabited. Memories related to space, to sensations. Showing the most imperceptible details. He will talk about how he grew up and how he changed. About the decisions he took and the ones he set aside. About how, at a certain point, he stopped feeling his presence and abandoned his familiar place.
Background information of the piece
The work was presented in Buenos Aires, Argentina, at the Performance Biennial in May 2015.
In Chile, in the Santiago a Mil festival (Santiago de Chile) and the Antofagasta a Mil festival (Antofagasta) in January 2016.
What is the piece about? A simple description.
To dismount a man?s habits and make a piece out of that gesture. Time between Us is about a man who decides to leave the place he knows to feel like a stranger, and decides to inhabit this solitary time, which is simultaneously shared with others. He decides to make an aesthetic and unique event out of this moment, looking to experiencing the absence and the relationship with unknown people, based on the supposition that he can be another person.
A small house somewhere in the city. Built with wood fragments from other houses that no longer exist. Inside the house, a man between 40 and 50 years old. 24 hours for 5 days. The audience can visit the house and stay for different situations.
A story that will be repeated 4 times a day. Over the 5 days, there will be scheduled discussions with scientists, sociologists, philosophers, historians, artists. The spectators can participate in these conversations that take place inside the space.
The man will be connected to the outside world through a radio.
Every night before bedtime, when no one but him is in the house, the man will use this tool as a journal, and he?ll decide whether he wants to play the radio during off-schedule hours. For example, using the radio to speak in the middle of the night assuming that, perhaps, someone has been hoping to find his voice or finds it by chance.
What is the theme or poetic element that goes through the piece?
The concept of Time is placed in a laboratory. Bodies stepping out to be part of daily encounters. A new construction. Among everyone. To be near, both unknown and equal people. The images and the story. The sounds and the hours. Our presence and the attempt to recover the memory of our transformations. If forgetting is part of the plan, then showing the movement is only a recognition of what has been left behind. A trail. A desperate retelling of something that does not belong to us. As it is the case with Time. As we go through it. Just like the desire to look for a better place to be and never know whether we did everything we could have done and then maybe, to look, maybe build something different or just be there, leaving the questions be, without expecting too much.
And in the middle of this shared time, there is the object that brings us together. A house. An historical object that serves as a reference to us in terms of shelter, encounters, loneliness.
In the words of Ilya Kabakov:
The house is thus a memory?s device, evoking memories, summoning ghostly entities. Also, the unconscious is full of ghosts. Not only memories, but also the things we have forgotten are 'stored' there. The soul is an abode. By remembering houses and rooms we learn to look within ourselves.
What kind of interaction does the piece has with the audience?
The piece has a permanent interaction with the audience, from its inclusion in the space where the action takes place to the possibility of visiting the space and situations at different times, or follow the actor?s nightly stories on the radio day after day.
In this regard, this piece explores the various possible and temporary roles that a spectator can have. It invites him/her to make decisions, turning the spectator into an active builder of possible situations.
Someone who sees a film on the first day and goes to the house the second day to be present for the story the actor tells, and later attends the conversation the actor has with an intellectual, and on the third day, this person passes by the house on his/her way to work and just watches the place: This is a possible ideal spectator of this performance. That is, someone who connects with all the possible dimensions of the piece, and does so at different times.
Do we need previous instructions, or does the surprise factor play a role here?
Some preliminary instructions regarding the dynamics of the situations? schedule are required. But, at the same time, some passers-by can get close circumstantially or simply watch from outside, not knowing what is happening and asking why a house is located in that space where there was never a house before.
What are the ties of this piece to the artist?s earlier work?
The conceptual and spatial themes.