C.o. Journey #2 by Joanna bailie & Christoph ragg - Mokum

Timmerhoutkaai 7
B-1080 Brussels, Belgium
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C.o. Journey #2
by Joanna bailie &
Christoph ragg
(C.o. = Camera oBsCura)
© Luc Depreitere
C.O. Journey #2 invites you to take your seat in a cinema-sized camera obscura. A
camera obscura is an optical device whose properties have been known for centuries:
when a light source shines through a tiny hole into a dark interior, an inverted image
of the outside world appears on the opposite wall. According to art historian Jonathan
Crary, however, the camera obscura is more than just an optical instrument, it is as it
were “a philosophical metaphor for the ambiguous relationship between man as an
observer and the world.”
Throughout history various qualities have been ascribed to the camera obscura.
Because of the typically deep colours and the sharpness of the image, the projection
was considered an adequate or even more authentic rendition of reality. Conversely,
the inverted image also has an undeniably mysterious and mystical nature. The instrument
was applied to both scientific and artistic practice (Vermeer’s interiors are said
to have been painted with the aid of a camera obscura), as well as finding its way into
popular culture as a fairground attraction.
Over the last few decades computer graphic techniques have had a large impact on
the culturally established meaning of the terms observer and representation, according
to Crary. They produce visual ‘spaces’ that are radically different from the mimetic
abilities of film, photography and television. With these analogue techniques the
Joanna
Bailie
Christoph
ragg

Timmerhoutkaai 7
B-1080 Brussels, Belgium
info@mokum.be
www.mokum.be
source of the image can always be traced back to a real space. By means of these
new technologies, the act of looking is radically withdrawn from the human observer
and virtual spaces come into existence. Christoph Ragg and Joanna Bailie have a
shared interest in the simplicity of analogue techniques and the specific texture they
produce.
In C.O. Journey #2 the spectator is placed inside the image while at the same time
experiencing the odd realization that the performance is taking place outside the box
and more specifically behind him or her. The central subject of the performance in
question is a staging of The Arnolfini Portrait by Jan Van Eyck. This tableau vivant,
the visual distortion to which it is subjected and the far-fetched historical account
that accompanies the piece all contribute to an atmosphere of unease. In this way
an ambiguous relationship arises between the images and information that reach the
darkened box and ourselves, explicitly throwing us back on our own subjective points
of view.
In C.O. Journey #2 the spectator is anything but a passive viewer; he or she participates
in the complexity of an image. Using simple means, Bailie and Ragg offer resistance
to the superficial ‘gaze of the consumer’, to the constant stream of images we
have to digest on a daily basis.
a fiCtional spaCe
The camera obscura itself creates what might be called a fictional space. Operating in
real time and projected from a place adjacent to the screening room, it is in fact a projected
image and a live performance at the same time. The image has no “frame” and
spills across the ceiling and walls of the space. It also possesses a certain “tactile”
quality that is quite unlike video and more akin to a painting (a painting that is in fact in
motion). In a way it occupies an ambiguous position halfway between a real thing and
a film.
With enough light, they are able to create some element of depth to the image. Perspective
is heightened and a small space almost appears to get bigger due to the
contrast in brightness between objects nearer the hole and those far away from it. Figures
moving into the lit space also seem to have been conjured up out of the darkness
due to this same contrast in brightness. This semi-illusionary effect adds to the idea of
a strange constructed fictional space and allows them to make smooth transitions between
scenes equivalent to some kind of cross-dissolve but purely analogue in nature.
The scenery used in the performance space is one of the most important elements of
the piece. It is not just a minor consideration — with it they are able to continuously
make, break down and recreate different fictional spaces. The process of the performers
carrying out this work also constitutes an important component of the performance
itself. The adjacency of the two spaces is also a factor here — their working
area is next to the screening room. It is important that the audience is not only able to
see, but hear and sense their presence on the other side — even though they are sitting
in a box they should not feel isolated from the outside world.

Timmerhoutkaai 7
B-1080 Brussels, Belgium
info@mokum.be
www.mokum.be
the Camera oBsCura and the Content of the
pieCe
Since the camera obscura (in its role as a scenographic element, means of image
transmission and container for the audience) takes such a central role in the piece,
it seems important that the actual content to be screened in this “projection room”
should be connected to it both explicitly and implicitly.
A history of image-making technology:
One subtext of the piece is that it forms, in a way, a short survey of the camera obscura
and subsequent related technologies. From paintings allegedly constructed using
the camera obscura, through to the phenomenon itself and onto photographs and
movies, a whole history of image-making is present. We are never allowed to forget in
fact, that what we are sitting in is itself an over-sized camera and that its basic optical
operations are at once counter-intuitive and yet essential to all modern photographic
devices (even digital ones). The conceptual and technological gap between the capturing
of a still image and the impossibility of recording genuinely continuous motion is
also present in the work with reference to the philosophy of Henri Bergson.
© Reinout Hiel
Parallel processes:
Bailie & Ragg concentrate on building up ways of connecting the audio and visual
without relying on obvious strategies. The idea of a certain parallelism and equality
between these two elements is central to the construction of the piece – from the use
of canonical works of both visual and musical art (The Arnolfini Portrait by Van Eyck
and the third movement of Beethoven’s Tempest Sonata) to the range of different types
of “processing” that this basic material undergoes. The audio and visual processes are
sometimes synchronous and sometimes not — the aim is to produce a set of relatable
co-ordinates between what we hear and what we see.

Timmerhoutkaai 7
B-1080 Brussels, Belgium
info@mokum.be
www.mokum.be
Working together
With this project Joanna Bailie and Christoph Ragg join forces at the intersection of
different disciplines. As a composer Joanna Bailie is fascinated by grid structures,
which impose a restriction on the composition, but exactly in doing so they allow a
large degree of freedom and intuition; as the French writer Georges Pérec once said
“Formal constraint produces movement.” In his capacity as a scenographer Christoph
Ragg possesses a strong visual power of imagination which he manages to
translate into performative spaces. He has created several installations that take the
“point of view of the spectator” as their point of departure.
Bailie & Ragg have discovered through collaborating over the past couple of years
that they bring complimentary, rather than competing, skills to their work. Their collective
interest in the camera obscura phenomenon itself, and a desire to tell a story
within this context is what they have in common. This symbiotic partnership also
facilitates the exploration of the relationship between sound/time and image/space.
They continue to ask themselves whether these elements can be prised apart, processed
separately and then presented as being of equal importance. They feel collaborating
on the camera obscura project allows them the opportunity of studying the
possibilities and limitations of the multidisciplinary work.
press “... Christoph Ragg and Joanna Bailie trace the genesis of film technique
(...). The spectator enters a pristine white cube, the inversion of the darkroom. When
the lights go out, the whole room serves as a camera obscura. (...) We see film being
created in real time. The actors are midwives, who bring the wonder to life using
the most basic resources: a box, a lamp and a hole. C.O. Journeys demolishes the
detached character of the technique. As a spectator you are placed inside the camera
obscura, which functions as both camera and projector, and there this rudimentary
technology transforms itself into to a tactile experience. The empty box gets a soul...”
(From: ‘Kan theater de film redden’ by David Verdeure in rekto:verso, nr. 45, Jan-Feb 2011)
Credits
Concept & Realization Joanna Bailie & Christoph Ragg
Dramaturg Helga Baert
Movement coach Mette Edvardsen
Technical assistant Caroline Daish
Production Mokum vzw
Co-production Buda (Kortrijk), Vooruit (Gent), Workspace
(Brussels)
Realization camera obscura Lucas Coeman & Jan Vandenbussche
Realization costumes Gilberte Voorspoels
In collaboration with Netwerk (Aalst)
With the support of De Pianofabriek Werkplaats (Brussels)
Thanks to Rosas, Bains Connective, Nadine
Supported by the Flemish Community

Timmerhoutkaai 7
B-1080 Brussels, Belgium
info@mokum.be
www.mokum.be
performanCes
17.06.11 19:00 & 21:05 Working Title Platform #2 | les Brigittines, Brussels
18.06.11 19:00 & 22:00 Working Title Platform #2 | les Brigittines, Brussels
19.06.11 19:45 Working Title Platform #2 | les Brigittines, Brussels
13.10.10 19:00 & 22:00 Almost Cinema | Vooruit Gent
14.10.10 19:00 & 22:00 Almost Cinema | Vooruit Gent
15.10.10 19:00 & 22:00 Almost Cinema | Vooruit Gent
16.10.10 19:00 & 22:00 Almost Cinema | Vooruit Gent
Christoph ragg has been living in Brussels since 2004 and has worked
as a freelance scenographer for Ivo van Hove, A.T. de Keersmaeker, Kirsten De-
brock and Claudio Bernardo. For three years he was the house scenographer at the
multidisciplinary workspace ‘nadine’. Together with Heike Langsdorf and Christophe
Meierhans he founded the collective ‘C&H’, a group that focuses on conceptual
performances. C&H’s projects have been presented at the Playground festival in
Leuven, the Courtisane festival in Ghent, the opening festival of the Centre Pompidou
in Metz, The Game is Up festival in Ghent and the KunstenFESTIVALdesArts
in Brussels. C&H is currently working on an edition of Postcards from the future in
Brussels, co-produced by KVS, Workspace Brussels and in partnership with Kfda,
Spoken Word festival, Kanal festival, Flagey, Pianofabriek and Zinnema.
Joanna Bailie was born in London in 1973 and has been living in Brussels
since 2001. Her music has been performed by groups such as Ensemble
Musikfabrik, The Nieuw Ensemble, Apartment House, The London Sinfonietta and
the Ives Ensemble. She has been broadcast by BBC Radio 3 on many occasions
and programmed at events such as the Venice Biennale, Huddersfield, the Borealis
and Ultima festivals in Norway and the Transit festival in Belgium. She has become
increasingly involved in collaborative pieces, working with choreographer Brice
Leroux on his Quantum Quintet at the KunstenFESTIVALdesArts and with scenographer
Christoph Ragg on a series of projects for camera obscura. Together with
composer Matthew Shlomowitz, she is the founder and artistic director of Ensemble
Plus-Minus. In May 2010 she was the guest curator at the SPOR Festival in Aarhus,
Denmark.
(c) Reinout HIel

Timmerhoutkaai 7
B-1080 Brussels, Belgium
info@mokum.be
www.mokum.be
praCtiCal
At the beginning of the performance the public is invited to take a seat inside the
camera obscura which is a room inside a room (6m wide, 7m long and 3.50m high).
The public (max. 25 people) sit on three levels of raked seating with their backs against
a wall with a small hole in it and watch the opposite wall which functions as a screen.
Behind the wall with the hole is the ‘performance space’ where the action takes place
and the sound and light are operated. The light is directed towards the performance
space and using only this light, an image is projected into the dark room. The inside of
the camera obscura is white so that we can see as much of the projection as possible
and lenses of different strengths are used to make this image sharper according to the
distance between the point of focus and the wall. The camera obscura is not bound to
a specific space. As long as it is possible to provide the room with enough light (power
sources) and enough space behind the camera obscura (for the performance space) it
is possible to show the piece in a theatre, a gallery or a hut.
© Reinout Hiel
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