Output details

Moth Theatre

Moth Theatre is a small-scale freestanding plywood miniature cinema fitted with a video feedback system and ultra-violet lighting. Presented first in a pine wood clearing, it stood in a pool of its own radiance, acting as a theatre for moths by moths but observed by humans. Nocturnal insects drawn to the screen had their images multiplied by a video feedback loop and projected onto the screen alongside their real image. Moth Theatre was commissioned for the Latitude Festival 2010 in Suffolk, UK and was the first winner of the Latitude Contemporary Art Award.

Moth Theatre plays with the nature of spectacle across the species divide. Drawn by the same light and image as the insects, the human observer eavesdrops on this evolving and autonomous performance and is enabled to meditate upon the power of natural phenomena.

The piece becomes a self-generating system mirroring chaotic systems within nature, continuing my concern for patterning and the interplay of simplicity and complexity. The work discusses the nature of spectacle by creating a ’performance‘ by creatures inherently oblivious of their spectacle, creating a situation in which the audience can both immerse themselves in that spectacle, and observe themselves creating it.

The documentary video illustrates the quality of motion and its connection to my ongoing research into the binary in performance and narrative, as discussed in my chapter 'Two into One: One into Two' in Navigating the Unknown (2006).

Video feedback both spatially mirrors and temporally echoes singular random events, giving them choreographic qualities and seeming intentionality. This work brings this line of enquiry into the context of chaos and symmetry in Nature. It is an extension of the journey of my work from performance into sculpture and live art, in an attempt to intimately address the viewer's perceptions and presence.