16mm digitally transferred, installation, 2007, two loops, 22' / 13'
16mm digitally transferred, installation, 2007, two loops, 22' / 13'
10 Monologues is a visual essay. It uses material shot in Ireland and India between 2004 and 2007; each 100-foot, 2-minute roll of 16mm film is included in its entirety. The soundtrack combines location recordings, specially recorded music and a series of ten monologues, spoken by a male and a female narrator in turn.
The piece plays as two loops of different lengths, from DVD. The longer loop also incorporates the split stereo soundtrack, and is projected onto a wall; this image is distorted, using horizontal keystoning settings on the projector. The shorter loop is silent and plays on a video monitor.
10 Monologues considers some of the same themes present in No Special Place, within a more free formal structure. As the two loops play, sound and image move into new combinations. Thus the themes of the work – memory, biography, love, trauma – are played out and differently for different viewers. Most of the monologues are original but some are appropriated from existing sources. Moreover, preconceptions about the locations and contexts for the film (‘exotic’ India, ‘conflict-torn’ Belfast) are questioned and undermined, through the multiple juxtapositions thrown up by the piece.
Written, filmed and edited: Daniel Jewesbury
Female: Lucy Cotter
Male: Duncan Ross
Produced with funds the Centre for Media Research at the University of Ulster, the Arts Council of Northern Ireland and the British Council.
© Daniel Jewesbury