ACT 3: FRIENDS, YOU DRANK SOME DARKNESS

“The image offered us by reading the poem now becomes our own. It takes root in us. It has been given us by another, but we begin to have the impression that we could have created, that we should have created it.” Gaston Bachelard

“Act 3: Friends, you drank some darkness” is the final performative act of “Prufrock (in three acts)”, an experiment in deconstructed adaptation surging from research undertaken by artist/curator Bronwyn Bailey-Charteris (born Sydney, 1984) during her time at CuratorLab, Stockholm.

During 2013/2014 Bailey-Charteris focused her research around processes of adaptation and poetics, specifically of the 1916 poem, “The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock” by T.S Eliot. The poem is a melancholic and cadenced narration of the end of a life. “Prufrock (in three acts)” is a deconstructed adaptation dealing with the authority of narratology, the voice in poetics and conceptions of death and drowning. The adaptation follows the stylistic rules of a three act play; first act: meet-the-characters, second act: conflict and third act: resolution.

In collaboration with key Stockholm based contemporary artists, scientists and thinkers, Prufrock entangles intimate audiences into unexpected visions and sonic happenings. “Act 3: Friends, You Drank Some Darkness” takes the form of a magazine launch of Das Superpaper no. 32, which includes the final script for “Act 3”, a film screening by Nick Garner and Harun Farocki, and installation from the Centre for Inefficency. This final act is hosted by Index in collaboration with Das Platforms.

List of works:

Nick Garner, Acid/Gothic, 2014
Split screen film, of the exhibition Acid/Gothic, featuring the artists Gary Carsley, Pia van Gelder, Tracey Moffatt, Sarah Mosca, Tomislav Nikolic, Jess Olivieri, Giselle Stanborough, Peter Weibel

Bronwyn Bailey-Charteris, Till Human Voices Wake Us, 2014
Written script, Printed in Issue 32 of Das Superpaper

Harun Farocki, Bilder der Welt und Inschrift des Krieges, 75 mins, 1988
From the Index film archive

Centre for Inefficiency, Act 2(3) A Soft October Night (remnants), 2014
Centre for Inefficiency is a context initiated by Clara Isaksson, Ulrika Lublin and Joanna Nordin