Truckers & Trackers

For Truckers & Trackers the company ON AIR invited screenwriter Mark Johnson to crossbreed key genre sources, such as Bill Lancaster's screenplay The Thing and Dan O’Bannon's original script for the movie Alien, with themes from his own work.

In the dictionary alien is defined as an adjective describing something strange, foreign, remote, hostile, and repugnant.

The blend of fascination and horror evoked by the idea of a "close encounter" is arguably rooted in the fear of the uncontrollable other. In movies, this phobia tips into survivalist hysteria when the confrontation is confined to an inescapable place, such as a spaceship (Alien) or a lonely Antarctic research facility (The Thing). These claustrophobic locations function ideally as metaphors for the human body and mind.

When "some thing" penetrates this human territory, a being with the capacity to violate and transform the human body, the panic reaction is to isolate, quarantine, eradicate. But who carries the threat? Who should be locked-up, re-categorized, terminated? And how can anyone be sure the threat won't return?

Memory
In 2002, choreographer and director Frauke Havemann joined forces with video artist Eric Schefter and performer Neal Wach to examine the possibilities of combining live performance with pre-recorded video material. Starting from a collection of “found” texts, they began to shoot and rehearse. As in a game, rules and tasks were developed which could be followed or ignored. The cinematic principle of ‘the cut’ could be used for interruption or irritation - as a possibility for direct collision and/or an (expandable) interval. The goal was to be precise in timing and reaction, while allowing decision-making and flexibility within the performance situation. Mistakes and unforeseen events (both technical and human) where integrated into the game.

Since then, ON AIR has developed a series of works which investigate the flux and friction between live performance (human time, transformation/change) and pre-recorded material (mechanical/digital time, the option for endless repetition). Within these parameters of narrative and multi-layered montage the audience becomes co-producer, co-writer, co-storyteller and so on.

To expand their "group", the three developed a technique that allowed Neal Wach to play live against his pre-recorded self.

Sources: ON AIR productions. 07.09.2010: www.onairproductions.info

BIT Teatergarasjen, Meteor 2007. 07.09.2010: http://www.bit-teatergarasjen.no –archive