Fall of Tragedy (A 7-part video series)
Video and Photography Stills by Billy Soh
2008 (May)

This piece of artwork is a monologue between the actor and the character she has taken up as a role. The script is a video work with the actor dressing up and behaving in a certain conduct to express thoughts about marriage, love, death, rebirth and confusion. The photograph documents the process of the performance while in shooting.

This shifting of actor to character requires the juxtaposition of identities and personalities, slowly blurring the definition of the artist as actor and that of the character. This puts a concept of un-clarity firmly in context.

Theatre as an art form draws an interesting reference to the portrayal of drama as a whole. It is a form of musical opera where singers are engaged to sing and act out the tragedies of life; in sorrow, in sadness, in joy etc, as seen in many historical works by famous playwrights. Theatre is highly regarded as a high Art form as it manages to capture the essence of emotions in the work and by re-enacting emotional feeling that the audience can relate to.

My interest in Tragedies came as a personal experience to living my own life and experiencing changes in my surroundings. I am also extremely chaotic in nature and am used to liking works that arouse such similar attitudes. Sculptor and Performance Artist John Bock is an artist that I look at. His work takes on the form of sculpture, performance, installations hat are both narrative and playful.

The video challenges the form and space of traditional theatre when I use it in place of a theatre studio; video technology as opposed to a group performance.

These are 7 different videos outling 7 different tragedies that uses neither words nor speech to describe an emotion but by illustrating using only simple gestures and props to narrate a story.


Songs of Innocence:
Songs of Innocence traces one woman's struggle to negotiate between her simple outlook of innocence and that of growing up and accepting differences and difficulties. Her joy/idea of innocence is portrayed from the start of the video which grows into the process of growing older and accepting her realities.

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