update from sparkleup
This commit is contained in:
Madison Scott-Clary
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@ -19,6 +19,7 @@
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<li>You — normal voice</li>
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<li>Narrator 1 — normal voice (more action oriented)</li>
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<li>Narrator 2 — normal voice (more introspective)</li>
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<li>Optionally, two anonymous roles with a few lines.</li>
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</ul>
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<h2 id="script">Script</h2>
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<style>
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@ -828,6 +829,375 @@ dd p:first-of-type {
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</dd>
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<dt>Dear</dt>
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<dd>(murmuring, playful, close) The only downside to being a fox is that it is really hard to kiss with a muzzle.</dd>
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</dl>
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<p>Long pause.</p>
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<dl>
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<dt>Narrator 2</dt>
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<dd>And then it quits.</dd>
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<dt>Narrator 1</dt>
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<dd>
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<p>Your arms collapse against your front, through the ephemeral outline of the fox that remains.</p>
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<p>With a shout, you scramble off of the love-seat, shock forcing you to stand in a defensive position.</p>
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<p>The air is cold after the contact.</p>
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</dd>
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<dt>You</dt>
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<dd>(stammering, confused, shocked) Dear?</dd>
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<dt>Narrator 1</dt>
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<dd>
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<p>The room is empty.</p>
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<p>It takes a moment for you to remember that you’re within a gallery exhibit. That Dear hung the frames in which you’re the art.</p>
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<p>How cynical of it, though, to build emotional rapport, to tease at the edges of your feelings, questing at loneliness, and to leave, to do this for art. You must admit it hurts.</p>
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<p>You laugh, forced and bitter.</p>
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</dd>
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<dt>Narrator 2</dt>
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<dd>Lonely, indeed.</dd>
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<dt>Narrator 1</dt>
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<dd>
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<p>You turn your touch sensoria way down and head to the door.</p>
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<p>Numb — or, that’s not quite it, more like confused and in pain but unwilling to feel either — you shuffle into the final room. Seeing the pointed ears of Dear over the heads of the crowd fills you with strangely shaped emotions, which you set aside and move to rejoin your friends. All of whom, it seems, are set on laughing at your expense.</p>
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</dd>
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<dt>Narrator 2</dt>
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<dd>Not helping.</dd>
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<dt>Narrator 1</dt>
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<dd>
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<p>A group of audience members next to you gives a shout and jumps away from a spot in the floor as a panel begins a to lift up. A\ldots{}trap door? From it, a ragged and slightly dirty looking head peeks up.</p>
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<p>Your head.</p>
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<p>Your dirty, scraggly, frowning head. It looks upset, catches your eye, and quits. A set of memories, new and fresh, awaits you, ready for merge.</p>
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<p>You try to get a peek of what’s down the hole beneath the floor, but, other than dirt and rock, you don’t see anything before it slams shut.</p>
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</dd>
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<dt>You</dt>
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<dd>(grumbling) Fuck it.</dd>
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<dt>Narrator 1</dt>
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<dd>
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<p>You merge the memories blithely, ignoring any potential conflicts. You’re hungry for reasons to hate.</p>
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<p>A panel in the side of the room gives way and folds back into a corridor.</p>
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<p>No, not a corridor, a staircase. From it steps another audience member, another you, looking pale, shaken. They do not look as though they would like to talk, though. Those around them look sullen at being rebuffed, but that version of you doesn’t seem to care.</p>
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<p>You send a quick sensorium ping to them, instructing them to quit. They do so.</p>
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<p>You feel that hate begin to simmer.</p>
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<p>Once all of the audience is brought back together in this whitewashed room, with its exposed ceiling, you hear Dear’s kind voice waft above the heads.</p>
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</dd>
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<dt>Dear</dt>
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<dd>The final room of the exhibition is not participatory. Please feel free to wander and explore. I–</dd>
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<dt>Narrator 1</dt>
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<dd>It pauses, forks a few times, each instance smiling, and continues.</dd>
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<dt>Dear</dt>
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<dd><em>We</em> will be available for questions and chit-chat. Finally, I would like to thank you all deeply for attending this exhibition, and The Simien Fang School of Art and Design for hosting it. SF welcomes you back to any future exhibitions.</dd>
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<dt>Narrator 1</dt>
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<dd>There is applause, then, but it’s scattered, confused.</dd>
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<dt>Narrator 2</dt>
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<dd>Dear looks proud at this.</dd>
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<dt>Narrator 1</dt>
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<dd>
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<p>You and your friends wander slowly through the room.</p>
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<p>It’s a square. Equidistant from the walls and each other are four pedestals, with one more a positioned at the center. Each pedestal is about waist-height and is just as white as the rest of the room. Images float a few inches from the top of the one nearest you, so you and your friends begin the circuit, wandering to inspect each pedestal in turn.</p>
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<p>Each is labeled with a simple placard.</p>
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</dd>
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<dt>Narrator 2</dt>
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<dd>The Wanderer</dd>
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<dt>Narrator 1</dt>
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<dd>
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<p>It’s a surreal experience, watching yourself, your actions, through someone else’s eyes. Sure, there are videos and such, but there’s something a little different about this. The way the ‘camera’ moves is…well, it’s not a camera. There’s no way it could be a camera.</p>
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<p>It has to be Dear.</p>
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<p>You watch more closely as the recording loops. It starts with a flash, a point of view very close to the ground. Lots of ankles. Shoes.</p>
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<p>Then it moves, quickly and jauntily, dashing through that forest of legs, pausing to look up into faces. Most give it only cursory glances, apparently unsure of how to take this tiny animal moving among them. A few refuse to look at it, clearly disconcerted.</p>
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<p>Then there’s your face. You look more curious than anything, trying to figure out this thing before you. The you here, now, stares back into your eyes through the playback. Those younger eyes, less tainted by memories than your own.</p>
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<p>You hold your breath.</p>
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<p>There’s the explosion.</p>
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<p>The viewpoint skitters off to the side (lots of ankles, here) and toward a wall. It seeks out the molding on the floor at the base of the wall, then the corner where that meets the perpendicular molding of a doorjamb. There’s its place. There’s where it belongs. It scrabbles at the door, waiting for you, knowing you’ll come.</p>
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<p>And there’s your shoes, with less dirt on them than they have now, and then the door swings open. The viewpoint leaps through, into sun and grass, with the shoes (and the rest of you) falling after.</p>
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<p>Until now, the playback had been silent, but directed speakers start to project a little bit of audio, muffled.</p>
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</dd>
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<dt>Dear</dt>
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<dd>(through recording) You’re one tenacious fuck, you know that</dd>
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<dt>Narrator 2</dt>
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<dd>Everyone but you laughs.</dd>
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<dt>Narrator 1</dt>
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<dd>
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<p>You hear your discussion with the fennec, heavily obscured by the crunching of grass and the occasional grunts from yourself as the two of you make your way through the field. Your discussion on the meaning of exhibit, of medium, of art versus frame.</p>
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<p>The video slides slowly lower to the ground as the fennec stretches out, then goes dark.</p>
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<p>Repeats.</p>
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<p>There’s a touch of resentment, you feel. That Dear had somehow managed to record a portion of its sensorium and was playing it back to these strangers.</p>
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</dd>
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<dt>Narrator 2</dt>
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<dd>Was that even possible?</dd>
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<dt>Narrator 1</dt>
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<dd>It bodes ill for the other pedestals.</dd>
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<dt>Narrator 2</dt>
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<dd>The Rebel</dd>
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<dt>Narrator 1</dt>
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<dd>
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<p>This pedestal contains a fairly short loop, more obviously taken from a conventional security feed.</p>
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<p>It’s hard to discern what happens at first. It mostly looks like a bunch of people standing still, and then, as if on cue, freaking out.</p>
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<p>A closer look, and you feel your cheeks go red. You know what’s going to happen.</p>
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<p>There’s you.</p>
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<p>And there’s your forked instance.</p>
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<p>And there’s Dear’s forked instance.</p>
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<p>And then chaos as Dear deftly moves the room into strife.</p>
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<p>Then the recording loops.</p>
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<p>You swallow hard, knowing what’s going to come next. You avert your gaze from the pedestal as you watch the chaos begin again. Your friends jeer at you, but you don’t feel proud at having done what you did.</p>
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</dd>
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<dt>Narrator 2</dt>
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<dd>The Fighter</dd>
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<dt>Narrator 1</dt>
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<dd>
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<p>As you catch a glimpse of the next pedestal on approach you wince, both at remembered pain embarrassment. You had not known this would be the next in line, but you had suspected.</p>
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<p>The scene in this pedestal shows fighting, chaos.</p>
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<p>Once again, this appears to be a sensorium recording…</p>
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</dd>
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<dt>Narrator 2</dt>
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<dd>How had Dear <em>done</em> that?</dd>
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<dt>Narrator 1</dt>
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<dd>…showing a fight that’s far more well-choreographed than you remember. Seeing it from Dear’s point of view, it looks a lot more like purposeful herding. The safety settings on that room had been so high that that’s about all it had been.</dd>
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</dl>
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<p>Then the instance’s point of view gets whipped around to face you, your face squarely in its vision.</p>
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<dl>
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<dt>You</dt>
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<dd>(through the recording) What the fuck do you think you’re doing?!</dd>
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<dt>Narrator 1</dt>
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<dd>
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<p>You wince at the sound of your voice, hoarse from excitement, profane, coming from those directed speakers.</p>
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<p>Then the fight begins in earnest.</p>
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<p>You’re dragged to the center of the room of the fight and then dropped into the ring, those concrete walls and that dirt floor making your remembered wounds ache.</p>
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<p>This fight is less well choreographed. More jagged.</p>
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<p>Except to you. You know.</p>
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<p>The details play out on the pedestal with a cool, almost clinical precision, holding none of the emotion that you had felt. The blows, the circling, the jumps and scratches.</p>
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<p>The syringe.</p>
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</dd>
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<dt>Dear</dt>
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<dd>(softly, from nearby) I had to mean to do it.</dd>
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<dt>Narrator 1</dt>
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<dd>The fight isn’t so far off, that anger not so much less than at a boil that you don’t still have a strong urge to deck the fox standing in front of you.</dd>
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<dt>Dear</dt>
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<dd>(sad, resigned) If I did not mean to do it, you would have been confused. Maybe there would be victory, but it would have been empty and hollow. Confusion is not what was called for, in this exhibit. Victory or loss. Stress and decisions.</dd>
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<dt>Narrator 1</dt>
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<dd>You take a breath. One of those intentional breaths, the ones where you breathe out longer than you breathe in.</dd>
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<dt>You</dt>
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<dd>I think I understand why you did it</dd>
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<dt>Narrator 1</dt>
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<dd>You will yourself to tamp that hate down, if only for the sake of propriety.</dd>
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<dt>You</dt>
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<dd>I don’t like it, but I think I understand why.</dd>
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</dl>
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<p>DEAR nods, offers a hint of a bow, and backs away.</p>
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<dl>
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<dt>Dear</dt>
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<dd>That is my job.</dd>
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<dt>Narrator 1</dt>
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<dd>It retreats into the crowd.</dd>
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<dt>Narrator 2</dt>
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<dd>You feel sick.</dd>
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<dt>Narrator 1</dt>
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<dd>You think you know what will come next. You will yourself to walk to the next pedestal but, some part of you perhaps hoping to forestall the inevitable, veers to the center of the room, to the fifth pedestal instead. Vain hope, but one does what one must.</dd>
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<dt>Narrator 2:</dt>
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<dd>The Medium</dd>
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<dt>Narrator 1</dt>
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<dd>
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<p>The fifth pedestal, the one in the center of the room, is four recordings playing at once.</p>
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<p>They all feature you. They all feature the things that you did during your time here in the exhibition. All of those sly forks and subtle mergers.</p>
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</dd>
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<dt>Dear</dt>
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<dd>(smiling, close by) Did you think I did not know?</dd>
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<dt>Narrator 1</dt>
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<dd>You feel a heat rise to your cheeks. A blush? Deeper anger? </dd>
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<dt>You</dt>
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<dd>I…I mean, I didn’t–</dd>
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</dl>
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<p>DEAR holds up a paw, indicating silence. It seems fond of the gesture.</p>
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<dl>
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<dt>Dear</dt>
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<dd>I knew. I expected it from at least one member in the audience. There is always one.</dd>
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</dl>
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<p>It smiles. You find it a touch odd that the smile is simple and kind, not sly and knowing, not triumphant, and you’re not sure why. Not sure why it smiles in that way? Not sure why you find it odd? Perhaps both.</p>
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<dl>
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<dt>You</dt>
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<dd>Is it okay?</dd>
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<dt>Dear</dt>
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<dd>(laughing) Of course it is! This is a show on instance art. That is why it is expected. That is why there are five small exhibits here, not four.</dd>
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<dt>Narrator 1</dt>
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<dd>You smile tentatively.</dd>
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<dt>Dear</dt>
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<dd>That was a rather Dispersionista thing to do for a Tracker.</dd>
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<dt>You</dt>
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<dd>(abashed) I may have had a few drinks before.</dd>
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<dt>Dear</dt>
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<dd>I suspect a good many of those here did.</dd>
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<dt>You</dt>
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<dd>So why did you allow it?</dd>
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</dl>
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<p>Dear spreads its hands in a graceful gesture before clasping them at its front once more. Its tail, you notice, is swaying behind it, steady. </p>
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<dl>
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<dt>Dear</dt>
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<dd>You and I have talked about this.</dd>
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<dt>You</dt>
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<dd>(mumbling, distracted) I suppose we have</dd>
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<dt>Narrator 2</dt>
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<dd>You are still sorting through the merged memories, after all.</dd>
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<dt>Dear</dt>
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<dd>SF calls me an instance artist. Hell, I call myself an instance artist, but that is not totally accurate. I am closer to a director, though. I organize the stage, the crew — even if they are all me — and the choreography. You are the art though, or close enough to it. I will not say audience, or actors. I do not like the play metaphor all that much, since the art is not in the acting. There is no acting, but the metaphor will serve.</dd>
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<dt>Narrator 1</dt>
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<dd>You nod, watching the multiple feeds play out in their own courses. Watch. Guess at the contents of the next pedestal. Let that hate warm you, then sag away once more.</dd>
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</dl>
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<p>A silence, the sounds of chatter and the recordings.</p>
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<dl>
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<dt>You</dt>
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<dd>What are we supposed to do with our experiences here?</dd>
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<dt>Dear</dt>
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<dd>(laughing) This is not a lecture. No classroom, no notes, no papers to write. It is not a tool that you take away to use. (pause, sly) And even if it were, that’s your fucking job, not mine.</dd>
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<dt>Narrator 2</dt>
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<dd>The Lover</dd>
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<dt>Narrator 1</dt>
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<dd>Seeing the cool blue hues of the scene above the final pedestal brings an immediate and uncomfortable reaction. It feels like you swallowed a ball the size of your fists and it has lodged itself behind your rib cage.</dd>
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<dt>Narrator 2</dt>
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<dd>Embarrassment. Frustration. Anger. Loneliness. All in equal measure.</dd>
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<dt>Narrator 1</dt>
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<dd>
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<p>It makes you queasy.</p>
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<p>The audience surrounding the pedestal gasps at something</p>
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<p>“The instances aren’t the art, one of your friends mumbles, and you turn to them. They shrug. “I don’t think so at least. I don’t actually know what the art is.”</p>
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<p>Someone from across the pedestal offers, “Maybe instances are the brush?”</p>
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<p>Laughter.</p>
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</dd>
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<dt>Dear</dt>
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<dd>Instances the brush, emotion the paint.</dd>
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<dt>Narrator 1</dt>
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<dd>The voice is familiar by now, and you aren’t sure how you feel about that budding familiarity. Dear stands attentively nearby. </dd>
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<dt>Dear</dt>
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<dd>The art is the story behind it all. The art is…experiences?</dd>
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<dt>Narrator 1</dt>
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<dd>“Was that a question?” your friend asks.</dd>
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<dt>Dear</dt>
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<dd>(bemused) I do not make art because I know why. If I knew why, I would not need to make art, then, would I?</dd>
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<dt>Narrator 1</dt>
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<dd>The friend laughs. “So you’re a romantic?”</dd>
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<dt>Dear</dt>
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<dd>(smug) Perhaps you should watch the exhibit again.</dd>
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<dt>Narrator 1</dt>
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<dd>
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<p>You approach the pedestal just as the feed loops back to the beginning.</p>
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<p>Once again, you’re viewing a scene from Dear’s point of view.</p>
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</dd>
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<dt>Dear</dt>
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<dd>(from the recording) We can stay and chat a bit more. Do not worry, I am running this show, I make the rules.</dd>
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<dt>Narrator 1</dt>
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<dd>You watch yourself shrug.</dd>
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<dt>You</dt>
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<dd>(from the recording) Sure, why not? Came for the exhibition, after all. Might as well get the most of it.</dd>
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<dt>Narrator 1</dt>
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<dd>
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<p>When the instance of Dear looks around, you see that the room is almost empty, the last folks, your friends, drifting out the door.</p>
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<p>The conversation that follows is low on intensity and high on subtle, emotional cues. You watch yourself and the fox have a slow and easy conversation about ‘why’s.</p>
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<p>The image of Dear looks down, and you see that it’s paw is resting atop yours.</p>
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</dd>
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<dt>Narrator 2</dt>
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<dd>You — the you here, the you now — clench your fists.</dd>
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<dt>Narrator 1</dt>
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<dd>You know that that instance was designed specifically to be likable, approachable. The big eyes, the softened gaze, the larger ears. You know that you walked right into that.</dd>
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<dt>Narrator 2</dt>
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<dd>But hey, you were lonely and honest. You thought it was lonely and honest.</dd>
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<dt>Narrator 1</dt>
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<dd>
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<p>That feeling in your chest becomes a constriction, frustration and anger winning out. Hate winning out.</p>
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<p>You watch the whole interaction again, this time from the other point of view. You watch your own face as it slowly opens up, as you discuss being a fox, sensoria, post-modernism and romanticism. And romance.</p>
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<p>You watch as the point of view rises, leans in closer to the you pictured there on the pedestal, watch as it leans in close, into a hug far more intimate than one would expect from someone one had just met, two bars worth of drinks aside.</p>
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<p>The viewpoint switches to somewhere above the fox and yourself on the couch, though the audio stays close by.</p>
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</dd>
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<dt>Dear</dt>
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<dd>(from the recording) The only downside to being a fox</dd>
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<dt>Narrator 1</dt>
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<dd>You turn around as casually as possible so that you don’t have to watch. You will yourself not to hear. Will your ears to turn off, your sense of hearing to disappear.</dd>
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<dt>Narrator 2</dt>
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<dd>You hear all the same.</dd>
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<dt>Dear</dt>
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<dd>(from the recording) Is that it is really hard to kiss with a muzzl</dd>
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<dt>Narrator 1</dt>
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<dd>
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<p>There’s Dear, in front of you.</p>
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<p>Not the softened overly-kind dear from the blue room. Just normal Dear. Well, `normal’. Dear-prime.</p>
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</dd>
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<dt>Narrator 2</dt>
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<dd>It’s good because you think that the sight of the kind-Dear in this context would’ve made you quite upset.</dd>
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<dt>Dear</dt>
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<dd>Was that unfair of me?</dd>
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<dt>Narrator 1</dt>
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<dd>It’s done something to the room — unsurprising that it would have admin privileges in its own gallery, come to think of it — the two of you are in a cone of silence.</dd>
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<dt>You</dt>
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<dd>I…well, yes.’‘</dd>
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<dt>Narrator 1</dt>
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<dd>
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<p>You try and count the layers of remove from the reality of what you had experienced, try to calculate the cuils in your head. The experience, the exhibit on the pedestal, talking to the artist. Are you talking bout the pedestal? The video? The performance? The experience? You shake your head.</p>
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<p>Dear waits.</p>
|
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</dd>
|
||||
<dt>You</dt>
|
||||
<dd>I’d say you did an admirable job with the exhibition.</dd>
|
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<dt>Dear</dt>
|
||||
<dd>(quizzically) Admirable? I set up a situation — several, really — in which audience members feel emotions toward ephemeral constructs and made it art. I do not know if that is admirable. It is just art.</dd>
|
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<dt>You</dt>
|
||||
<dd>But you–</dd>
|
||||
<dt>Dear</dt>
|
||||
<dd>(interrupting) I am an artist, that is what I <em>do</em>. I am a person, though. Also a fox-person, but a person nonetheless. And I feel like I cut too deep with that one. Was that unfair of me?</dd>
|
||||
<dt>Narrator 1</dt>
|
||||
<dd>
|
||||
<p>Your shoulders sag.</p>
|
||||
<p>Dear waits.</p>
|
||||
</dd>
|
||||
<dt>You</dt>
|
||||
<dd>I don’t know. I had a few drinks, the exhibit was stressful. It was supposed to be stressful like you said. Just…it may have been an act, but I fell for it pretty hard.</dd>
|
||||
<dt>Narrator 1</dt>
|
||||
<dd>Dear waits. You feel discomfited.</dd>
|
||||
<dt>You</dt>
|
||||
<dd>(frustrated, but resigned) Look, it’s just silly, is all. I don’t even know why it affected me so much. (trailing off) Look. Was it true? What you said? Are you lonely? Were you earnest? Were you coming on to me?</dd>
|
||||
<dt>Narrator 1</dt>
|
||||
<dd>Dear nods, simple and straightforward. </dd>
|
||||
<dt>Dear</dt>
|
||||
<dd>It is perhaps easy for me to talk about because I rehearsed hard for this show, but yes, I am lonely as hell. I fork to form relationships and keep myself…I mean, I do not lie in my work if I can help it.</dd>
|
||||
<dt>Narrator 1</dt>
|
||||
<dd>It is your turn to wait, which discomfits Dear in turn.</dd>
|
||||
<dt>Dear</dt>
|
||||
<dd>I am sorry. I did cut too deep. I was not thinking. It is not my goal with these things to damage anyone’s trust in art, in instances. Or in me, for that matter. It is just that I do not make art because I know why. If I knew why, I would not need to make art. (pause, sigh) I feel really bad about this. I am sorry. I would like to do what I can to regain your trust.</dd>
|
||||
<dt>Narrator 1</dt>
|
||||
<dd>The weight of decision hangs heavy around your neck, heavy enough to bow your head. There’s very little you feel you can say without making that decision right then, so you stay silent for a moment.</dd>
|
||||
</dl>
|
||||
<p>Long pause</p>
|
||||
<dl>
|
||||
<dt>You</dt>
|
||||
<dd>(cautiously) I feel like you’re trying to ask me out.</dd>
|
||||
<dt>Dear</dt>
|
||||
<dd>(equally cautious) I am not <em>not</em> asking you out.</dd>
|
||||
<dt>Narrator 1</dt>
|
||||
<dd>Dear smiles faintly.</dd>
|
||||
<dt>Narrator 2</dt>
|
||||
<dd>So do you.</dd>
|
||||
<dt>You</dt>
|
||||
<dd>Listen, can you give me a night? Let me put some thought into it.</dd>
|
||||
<dt>Dear</dt>
|
||||
<dd>Fair. And listen, I really am sorry. There are bits of this show that I wrote thinking that they would lead to one thing, some spectacular art, and they led to…well, this.</dd>
|
||||
<dt>You</dt>
|
||||
<dd>(more upbeat) I get it. Kind of like a choose-your-own-adventure story that got a little out of hand.</dd>
|
||||
<dt>Dear</dt>
|
||||
<dd>I suppose.</dd>
|
||||
<dt>Narrator 1</dt>
|
||||
<dd>
|
||||
<p>It hesitates for a moment, then draws a card out of it’s left pocket, reaching out with its right paw at the same time, a perfectly formal business card exchange.</p>
|
||||
<p>You grin and, on a hunch, turn down your touch sensoria way up to accept the card — a flash of contact information and locations — and shake the fox’s paw.</p>
|
||||
</dd>
|
||||
<dt>Narrator 2</dt>
|
||||
<dd>It is <em>very</em> soft.</dd>
|
||||
</dl>
|
||||
<p>Outside, footsteps</p>
|
||||
<dl>
|
||||
<dt>Narrator 1</dt>
|
||||
<dd>
|
||||
<p>No one seems to have come out of the exhibit unscathed.</p>
|
||||
<p>A few bear the rumpled look of the recently roughed-up, but with their safety turned up, that’s about as far as the physical effects go. Rather, everyone within the group looks emotionally bruised, bitten, scratched. Some look dazed, some hurt, but no one looks blasé.</p>
|
||||
</dd>
|
||||
<dt>Narrator 2</dt>
|
||||
<dd>In that, Dear, Also, The Tree That Was Felled was successful.</dd>
|
||||
<dt>Narrator 1</dt>
|
||||
<dd>
|
||||
<p>You and your group walk to another bar. Quiet, subdued.</p>
|
||||
<p>You give the low-slung building a wide berth. Only you came away with something. There’s a card in your pocket, the dot on the question mark of an unanswered question.</p>
|
||||
<p>Two things, then. A card in your pocket, and a decision to make.</p>
|
||||
</dd>
|
||||
</dl>
|
||||
</article>
|
||||
<footer>
|
||||
|
|
|
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Loading…
Reference in New Issue