Output details

“Comic Battle” 3-Screen Video Installation.

Research Context

"Common Culture" is an artists' collective comprising Campbell, D., Durden, M., & Brown, I.

Comic Battle interrogates the stand-up comedy routine that serves as a familiar device for the reflection upon and analysis of human relationships. Delivered as a popular form of entertainment, the comics’ observations are driven by their own social experience; informed by a sense of who they are and how they relate to a world they share with their audience. Their local views on the big issues of sexuality, race, class and politics, mark their stories as funny and potentially insightful.

Research Imperatives

This practice-as-research project investigates the way humour is able to construct particular cultural identities through the articulation of global and local issues. This question is further developed by interrogating the problem of how British humour and jokes work in translation.

Project methods

By filming three male British stand up comedians performing on stage together, Common Culture’s Comic Battle centres on the raw competition between them and exploits the rivalry and tensions between them. Common Culture direct their acts by giving the comedians the subjects and topics that they have to make jokes about. Comic Battle is also then a reflection upon Common Culture’s own desire for control over the comedy routine, the comedians are not just battling between themselves but also use their wit to turn jokes against those who are getting them to perform.

Although they perform together, each comedian’s routine is filmed and recorded by a separate camera. The resultant filmed recordings are played simultaneously on three screens.

Dissemination

The work was subsequently revised and subtitled in Portuguese when played in Portugal (Cinematic Art Gallery, Vila do Conde, Portugal, September 19th to November 22nd 2009).