What is the difference between spectators and spect actors

And one person in that play is the protagonist and is the oppressed, meaning their voice has been taken away. When you present the play, the scenes end up bad. If we have to roll the stage to them, we put it on wheels. Because when you bring those young people to a play and talk about trauma, you open up a can of worms.

You might be re-traumatizing. You grew up under a dictatorship in Chile. In trying to do what you do, how does working in Milwaukee compare to Chile? Through deftness and patience, befitting an accomplished weaver, Van der Merwe reformulates these unlikely materials into desirable 'textiles' and surfaces, finally to 'stitch and sew' them into garments and objects of deeper significance. Material carries metaphorical meaning in contemporary art.

Since Picasso introduced collage as fragment of real life into art at the beginning of the 20 th century, the range of materials utilised by artists has opened up and the choice of materials and technique has become arbitrary, often depending on the meaning the artist intends to convey.

The choice of materials is very specific in Van der Merwe's artwork. Working primarily in rusted metal, Van der Merwe has developed a language that speaks subtly yet eloquently of the South African psyche. Often his inspiration is drawn from highly personal sources to develop themes that can be universally appreciated but more intensely so by viewers familiar with the peculiarities of South Africa - its art, society and history.

Van der Merwe often refers to his work as 'monuments'. These 'monuments' are anonymous or broadly universal; they refer to the memory of the unknown by many. The installations seem like abandoned film sets without actors. Several of Van der Merwe's installations juxtapose public spaces with private spaces.

In the table surface are four television monitors almost like place mats or plates with the audio-visual image of a repetitive gunshot. The private space of the family dining room is invaded by violence or pressures from society outside of the home. The space of the shop is public, but the moment the spectator enters the curtained fitting room, the space becomes private.

Van der Merwe's working process is also significant. He describes himself as a compulsive collector who takes objects discarded by others to his studio where it could be transformed into part of his installations.

The tins that he collects are sometimes already rusted; but if received still new and shiny, Van der Merwe transforms them by initiating the rust process with a mixture of salt, water and vinegar. He covers the large solid objects such as furniture with the rusted tins using small nails.

Clothing is created in a process like sewing where he attaches each piece of tin to the next with thin wire and the final finish is created by adding bitumen 4 and sand to create smooth transitions from one part to the next.

This technique allows the artist to 'shift time', rendering the objects into 'archaeological finds'. At present I work with artefacts of our time and attempt to transform them into archaeological remnants The tin cans are ordinarily used for preservation. The fragile rusted tins in these works become metaphors for waste, loss and consumerism. Their use may be seen as an attempt to 'preserve' something transient and vulnerable van der Merwe, Van der Merwe may also make use of technology in his art works that becomes part of the archaeology.

Images viewed on a screen are second-hand experiences to the viewer, yet evoke a visceral response to a first-hand memory or intrinsic knowing. There is a contrast between the tactile experience of the visitor to the installation the emphasis on texture and the many real mundane objects and the images viewed on screen - the contrast between the real and illusion.

To Van der Merwe, images projected on screen also have a spiritual quality, where, as humans, people have developed technology to assist in the study and re discovery of ancient origins and to search the unknown such as in deep space. Perhaps this need for study and discovery mirrors a spiritual quest that is symbolised by the illusionary quality brought to the installations through technology.

This installation was exhibited for the first time in in the Albert Werth Hall in the Pretoria Art Museum during the retrospective exhibition entitled The Archaeology of Time, and for the second time in the Reservoir of the Oliewenhuis Art Museum in Bloemfontein during the exhibition Time and Space in On the seats of the chairs are various individuals' personal belongings: hats, gloves, handbags, purses, spectacle cases, keys, briefcases - all representing ordinary people.

The objects contain the lives of their owners. These objects allude to people, but the people themselves are absent, as if they have left their belongings behind in the theatre.

All the objects are covered in rusted metal, and appear frozen in time, creating a sense or awareness of absence. This rusted patina as a method by means of which contemporary objects are placed into 'archaeological time', and while it may have a nostalgic effect on the spect-actor, forces the spect-actor to consider, scrutinise and respect contemporary life, especially the ordinary.

The commercial metal tin is ordinarily used to preserve food, in this case an attempt is made to 'preserve' vulnerability and transience.

The use of rusted tins in this installation is a further metaphor for recycling - to rust is to go back to the original matter, the end of a process and the start of the new. Also notable is that the chemical process of rust is a physical battle against time, which is in contrast to the preservation and re cyclical interpretations of time alluded to in the installation. The placement of the chairs in rows is suggestive of the layout of old graveyards, with separate spaces dedicated to children, soldiers and ordinary citizens.

The backs of the chairs resemble gravestones, emphasised by the order of the layout and the markings and decay on their surfaces like the marks left by water and the elements through the passing of time, on gravestones.

The visitor to an old graveyard is gripped by nostalgia and is aware of emotions effected by loss, the passing of time and an awareness of vulnerability - the artwork attempts to echo these ephemeral qualities.

This installation may be viewed as an opportunity to reflect - a monument to anonymous people. In this installation, the spect-actor, now in the role of filmgoer-viewer who enters the already darkened space from the back of the 'theatre', is momentarily blinded by small lights, attached to the back of each chair, dimly lighting the objects on the chair in the parallel row directly behind them. The lights also resemble stars in a dark sky and transport the viewer to an imaginative space.

When the spect-actors eyes adjust to the barely lit room, the installation becomes visible. As the viewer moves to the front of the installation and looks back, the lights at the back of the chairs are invisible, but the objects and chairs are bathed in soft light resembling the dim effect of sunrise.

This light effect suggests the contrasts between day and night, darkness and light. The layout of the objects echoes the conventions in old bioscopes where children sat in the front, and there is a block for adults and for soldiers; but also, as mentioned, the work as a whole resembles a graveyard with designated sections.

The spect-actor can walk between the rows of seats and can see the seat numbers stencilled on the floor. The 'journey' between the rows of seats resembles a walk in a maize or a pilgrimage with stations. The objects on the seats are remnants or evidence of lives and suggest units like frozen film frames where private, personal narratives unfold.

The spect-actor moves slowly among the rows and looks down to inspect the objects on the seats. In the last row at the back is a chair with a notebook on the seat and a jacket draped over the back, as if left behind by a film critic. Van der Merwe dedicated this chair to the memory of South African art and theatre critic, Barrie Hough In row 9, on the 11 th chair lies two folded 'paper' planes, made of rusted metal - a reference to the violence and loss of the American terror attack events of 11 September Although there is an allusion to the outside world and disaster on a global scale, a personal memory is also evoked by the inclusion of such items as intimate and fragile toys of a young child.

These objects are also dedicated to a specific young family member who lost his life at a very young age and who left a memory of a game with two toy aeroplanes, and thus also has a strong visceral sensory memory of a specific person. The knowledge of these literal connections is, however, not revealed to the spect-actor. Their relevance is to the evoked interpretation, both from the sincere and insightful handling by the artist, to the reflective reception induced in a spect-actor.

Forum theatre is a theatrical game in which a problem is shown in an unsolved form, to which the audience, spect-actors, is invited to suggest and enact solutions.

The problem is symptom of oppression and generally involves visible oppressors and a protagonist who is oppressed. The game is a form of contest between spect-actors trying to bring the play different end in which the cycle of oppression is broken and actors-oppressors make efforts to bring the play to its original end in which oppression wins.

Joker facilitator ensures smooth running of the game and teaches audience the rules. Many different solutions are enacted in the course of a single forum. Augusto Boal:. In Latin America audiences were small and homogeneous, workers from a single factory, residents of particular neighbourhood. In Europe I did a new type of Forum theatre, for hundreds of people who didn't know each other.

Preparation for Forum:. This is because FT is not a propaganda theatre, it is not the old didactic theatre. It is pedagogical in the sense that we all learn together, actors and audience.

The original protagonist must experience failure, so that the spect-actors will be spurred into finding solutions and inventing new ways of confronting oppression.

The performance is an artistic and intellectual game played between actors and spect-actors. Stages of Forum:. The show is performed as if it were a conventional play. The spect-actors are asked if they agree with the solutions advanced by the protagonist; they will probably say no.

The audience is then told that the play is going to be done a second time, exactly as it was done the first time. The actors will try to bring the piece to the same end as before, and the spect-actors are to try to change it, showing that new solutions are possible and valid. In other words, the actors stand for a particular vision of the world and consequently will try to maintain that world as it is and ensure that things go exactly the same way It is vital to generate a degree of tension among the spect-actors — if no one changes the world it will stay as it is, if no one changes the play it will come to the same end as before.

The audience is informed that in the replay of the performance they can take the place of the protagonist when he or she makes a mistake and to look for better solution. The actors must immediately stop where they are, without changing position.

The spect-actor must say where he or she wants the scene taken from. His work can be particularly pertinent to ID for two main reasons. Firstly, literature in ID often cites Aristotle as the basis for deciding if a work is dramatically interesting dramatic arc, tension, etc. Boal deconstructs this notion opening the way to other structures that can also be dramatically interesting. The idea is not to tag as wrong works that do follow the Aristotelian form, but to enlarge the scope of valid for those that don't, if they can implement a form of Theatre of the Oppressed,.

Secondly, his work is based on removing the separation between actor and spectator, subject and object. A theatrical piece is completed only through audience interaction. The spectator assumes a protagonist role and is an essential part of the action, as in Interactive Drama.