Oldal 151 [151]
OCR
NICHOLAS E. JOHNSON, NEILL O’DWYER, AND ENDA BATES replace the light as the interrogator; it must somehow integrate with it. A variety of solutions were considered, including lighting the interior of the urns with light-emitting diodes (LED) and programming these to trigger at the same moment as the camera; we even assessed the camera housing itself to see if it could allow for an attached light without affecting its mechanism. In the end, because of its functionality and ease, a classically analogue solution was found: the operator would be the interface between separate camera controls and light controls, hitting two buttons at the same time on the two different controllers. VIDEOGRAPHIC INFLUENCES The origins of the Intermedial Play project extend back to 2015, when Néill O’Dwyer (then a doctoral student in the Department of Drama at TCD) was approached by the head of department to conceive and exhibit a project that would employ the specificities of recently installed hardware, namely a robotic PTZ camera. This technology was initially developed for video surveillance, because it affords the remote camera operator a hemispherical field of vision through its built-in pan, tilt, and zoom functionality. As such, it operates primarily with a live camera feed; although recording is an option, the power in its functionality is through its harnessing of the live video stream. In recent years the technology has been widely deployed in the more benign context of video teleconferencing; it is particularly useful in roundtable seminar formats, where any given present attendee can communicate directly with a set of telepresent interlocutors. The objectives of the brief were to use the technology to demonstrate the new digital video possibilities available in the department, and to offer an inspirational reference point to students and staff; it is therefore notable that this was a case where the technology was more influential than the source, which was open to choice. O’Dwyer had seen Johnson’s production of Ethica at the Samuel Beckett Theatre in 2012, as well as engaging that same year with Jonathan Heron’s performance workshop within the Beckett Summer School, which included workshops with Play (including consideration of Minghella’s 2001 adaptation). The capabilities of the PTZ camera were immediately suggestive of the moving-head light from Ethica, meaning that the technological resonance between these devices, neither of which was available to Beckett, nonetheless invoked a Beckettian text as the most productive to investigate. Bringing a playtext across media into the digital realm is a complex and potentially costly transaction, but through the open-ended subjectivity of digital artefacts, new epistemic possibilities and new forms of knowledge are encountered. Digital media and other state-of-the-art tools afford the + 150 «+
