Here Lies in film…

Operating Theatre and Christopher Doyle

Preview: Thursday 25 September 2008, 6-8pm
Exhibition continues 26 September – 1 November

Temple Bar Gallery and Studios and Ulster Bank Dublin Theatre Festival are pleased to present the premiere of Here Lies in film... a digital film installation by Operating Theatre (Olwen Fouere and Roger Doyle) in collaboration with master cinematographer Christopher Doyle and edited by Simon Hudson.

The film is constructed using footage from the original live installation of Here Lies which was created by Operating Theatre with theatre director Selina Cartmell in 2005.

In August of 1937, Antonin Artaud, the French actor and writer whose work was to become a seminal force within 20th Century culture, arrived at Cobh with a letter of introduction from the Irish Legation in Paris. He was carrying a cane which he believed to be the staff of Saint Patrick and, a few days previously, had written that he had 'for several years been searching for the source of a very ancient tradition' and that he needed to go 'to the country where John Millington Synge has lived'. He travelled to Inis Mór where he stayed in the house of Seán O'Milleáin at Eoghanacht. After two weeks, owing O'Milleáin a debt of £1-17s-6d and leaving a note to say that he was 'going to post office with priest to get money', he arrived in Galway and checked in to the Imperial Hotel where he stayed approximately a week. Once again he left without the means to pay his bill. Artaud travelled onwards to Dublin where he stayed at the St Vincent de Paul shelter in Back Lane. A short time later, he was arrested for causing a disturbance in the grounds of the Jesuit Monastery at Milltown where he wished to gain access. He was held at Mountjoy prison until he was deported from Cobh as a "destitute and undesirable alien". On arrival at Le Havre, Artaud was disembarked in a straitjacket and was held in mental asylums for the next nine years. In February 1943, he was transferred to an asylum in Rodez where he was administered fifty one electroshock treatments over the course of two years. His journey through Ireland can only be retraced through letters and in the examination of a file (DFA Paris Embassy P34/119) at the National Archives in Dublin.

Through a choreography of sound, image and action, Here lies in film... combines superbly skilled and atmospheric camera work with a masterful performance by Fouere (utterly convincing in her role as the dissembling Artaud) and a compelling sound track by Doyle. A furtive and disembodied voice attempts to present Artaud's case 'as the victim of an aggression' and the fragmented narrative seeks our intervention against 'the violation of the right to asylum'. Here Lies in film... vividly communicates the escalation of Artaud's paranoia and distress following his deportation from Ireland and his subsequent confinement.

Operating Theatre creates performance based work with music as a core element. In its twenty-eight year history, Operating Theatre has produced a diverse portfolio of work using processes which have included the integration of music technology with original composition, found and commissioned texts, and live performance. The company’s work has been presented in both conventional and non theatrical environments. Here Lies in Film is the company’s inaugural piece in this medium.

Cinematographer Christopher Doyle has throughout his career shot some of the most memorable films in recent cinema history. His incessantly moving camera, his manipulation of light, color and shadow and his longtime collaboration with Chinese director Wong Kar-Wai have helped to create an insatiable hunger for Asian cinema. Born and raised in Sydney, Australia, Doyle’s distinctive and striking cinematography and his lush palette of unforgettable images on such films as “Chungking Express” (1994) and “In the Mood for Love” (2001) have earned him universal recognition. His other films include Gus Van Sant’s shot-for-shot remake of Alfred Hitchcock’s “Psycho” (1998), Australian film, “Rabbit-Proof Fence” (2001), “The Quiet American” (2002), “Hero” (2004), “2046” (2004), “Lady in the Water” (2006), “Dumplings” ( 2006) and “Paranoid Park” (2007) In 1998 Doyle became a first time director on “Away With Words”, which was first screened at the 1999 Cannes Film Festival. Over the years Doyle has won numerous accolades for his work, including National Society of Film Critics Best Cinematography 2006, New York Film Critics Circle Best Cinematography 2005, Cannes Film Festival Grand Prix Technique, 2000. He has won the Golden Horse Award for Best Cinematography three times, and has four times won Best Cinematography at the Hong Kong Film Awards. Doyle’s notable music video credits include "Six Days" for DJ Shadow, The Strokes' "Juicebox" and "Getaway" by the Scottish group Texas.

Roger Doyle was born in Dublin and studied composition on scholarships at the Royal Irish Academy of Music, the Institute of Sonology at the University of Utrecht and the Finnish Radio Experimental Music Studio. He has worked extensively in theatre, film and dance, in particular with the music-theatre company Operating Theatre, which he co-founded with actress Olwen Fouéré. Babel, his magnum opus, was begun in 1990 and had its first public showing in an entire wing of the Irish Museum of Modern Art in 1992 as a dance piece. Subsequent sections were composed during residencies at the University of Washington in Seattle, the Banff Centre for the Arts in Canada, the EMS studios in Stockholm and at the Royal Conservatory of Music in The Hague. A five-CD box set, Babel, was released to celebrate the work’s completion and the composer’s fiftieth birthday in 1999. Other works include a piano score for the Gate Theatre production of Salomé, directed by Steven Berkoff, which played in Dublin, London’s West End and on three world tours. The music, performed by the composer, was released on CD in 2000, as was the CD Under the Green Time, a collaboration with the Netherlands Wind Ensemble. A new large-scale electronic work Passades has just been completed and released on three CDs. He was recently commissioned by RTÉ for a new work, Adolf Gebler, clarinettist, for symphony orchestra and pre-recorded acted scenes. Awards include the Programme Music Prize (1997) and the Magisterium Prize (2007) at the Bourges International Electro-Acoustic Music Competition, France, and the Marten Toonder Award (2000) in recognition of his innovative work as a composer. Roger Doyle is a member of Aosdána, Ireland’s state-sponsored academy of creative artists.

Born on the west coast of Ireland of Breton parents, Olwen Fouere is an Irish/French actor whose work crosses the boundaries of many art forms. She is an Artistic Director of the performance and music-based company Operating Theatre (with composer Roger Doyle). Her work with Operating Theatre includes her solo performances of “The Diamond Body” (1984-87) written for her by Aidan
Mathews, “The Pentagonal Dream” (1986) by Sebastian Barry, “Angel/Babel” (1999), “Chair” (2000) and “Passades” (2004). As a free-lance actor, Olwen has performed with most major theatre companies in Ireland and in the United Kingdom, playing leading roles in numerous productions at the Abbey Theatre and at the Gate Theatre in Dublin, with the Royal National Theatre and the Royal Shakespeare Company in the UK and in the West End. She created the role of Salomé in Oscar Wilde’s ”Salomé” directed by Steven Berkoff which premiered at the Gate theatre and toured internationally. At the Abbey, she created the title role in “The Mai” and the role of Hester Swane in “By the Bog of Cats”, both written for her by Marina Carr and for which she received numerous awards. Other work of note includes the role of Rosaura in “Life is a Dream” with Catalan director Calixto Bieito which premiered at the Edinburgh International Featival ’98 and transferred to the Barbican Theatre, London, and BAM, New York. Her most recent stage appearances were as the Woman in Marina Carr's "Woman and Scarecrow" directed by Selina Cartmell at the Abbey for the 2007 Dublin Theatre Festival, as Maeve in “The Bull” with Fabulous Beast at the Barbican which was nominated for the 2008 Olivier Award and as Tamora in the award-winning "Titus Andronicus" also directed by Selina Cartmell (2005). Her film work includes “Saltwater” by Conor Mc Pherson, “Spacetruckers” by Stuart Gordon and ”Hard Shoulder” by Mark Kilroy. “Theatre in the Flesh”, a documentary film of a year in her life directed by Dara McCluskey, was broadcast as part of RTE’s Arts Lives series in 2005. Olwen has also performed in several pieces by artist James Coleman which continue to be exhibited internationally. She is currently performing in Paris in a French adaptation of "Paula Spencer, la femme qui se cognait dans les portes…" based on the two novels by Roddy Doyle, directed by Michel Abécassis and designed by Jean-Guy LeCat, as part of the France-Irlande "tandem" project of the Saison culturelle européene. This production will tour France until mid December 2008, including a week of performances at the Bouffes du Nord

Simon Hudson is a filmmaker and artist with a career spanning over two decades in a multiple of disciplines of film, television and stage over hundreds of productions. His artistic works include a mixture of multi-media and photography, as well as unusual ways of using visual imagery and sound to open the mind of the audience to new experiences.He has produced, directed and collaborated on numerous projects such as “Voices from the Inside” giving prisoners a forum for expression, through painting, photography and video, “Maelstrom”, a Kafka-esque nightmare, and ‘Shaman’, an experimental film showing the death of the persona in being reborn, “Wordweaver”, a documentary on Irelands influential writer, Benedict Kiely, a documentary on addiction and abuse, following the life of artist Tony Crosbie, “Trafficked” a searing drama on trafficking and the sex industry in Ireland, “The Dress”, a sell out comedy play on three women's life changing moment, and “The Tender Mercies” one of the most powerful prison dramas written. He is currently working on “Behind the Desert Wall”, about the once nomadic Saharawi people of Western Sahara and their struggle to return home, and a film about Vedran Smailovic, the “Cellist of Sarajevo”.

Press Contact: Rayne Booth - Temple Bar Gallery & Studios - t. + 353 1 671 0073 - e. press@templebargallery.com