2015

Lasater, Michael (artist)

The genesis of Mise-en-scène is the Stravinsky/Cocteau treatment of Oedipus Rex, first performed in 1927. I have been familiar with this composition from many encounters, including performances as a member of the Aspen Festival Orchestra, and later studying it along with Stravinsky's Persephone in David Diamond’s class in twentieth-century music at Juilliard. I was struck by Stravinsky’s intended mise-en-scène in which the soloists stand immobile in a niched frieze, a two-dimensional proscenium. I also loved his choice of Latin as a means of arresting the Oedipus story in stone –– a text as much ritual and object as narrative –– and his intentional use of so many stylistic references –– a Dada collage. In Mise-en-scène my personae ––Creon, Iocasta and Oedipus –– are set immobile in a triptych, a flat, painterly proscenium. I’ve written Latin texts as one might write lines for a libretto, but I do not intend that these texts be read as narrative. Instead, I’ve treated the texts as visual objects like the partial Latin inscriptions one sees on temple ruins. In Oracula, the text flows by so rapidly that it is all but unreadable. In Timeo and Ecce, the text is glimpsed in fragments –– one can discover shards of the Oedipus narrative, and if one knows the story, one can close the rest of the drama. The panels--three sketches--serve the same function. –Michael Lasater  	

New media art; Video art; Collage; Stravinsky, Igor, 1882-1971; Cocteau, Jean, 1889-1963

United States

Michael Lasater Video Art

IU South Bend Archives

English

Copyright Michael Lasater. All Rights Reserved. Materials in the Indiana University South Bend Special Collections and Archives have been provided for research and educational purposes only. If you use or reproduce our materials in any format, cite the IU South Bend Archives using the following format: [Title], Michael Lasater Video Art Collection, Indiana University South Bend Archives and Special Collections, [item link under Share This Resource tab]. The digital content contained in Media Collections Online is not available for copying, re-sale, re-use or incorporation into any databases or commercial product. No unauthorized mass downloading or scraping into any format is permitted.

online resource (1 video file (06:00)): sound, color

Mise-en-scène is a computer collage of preexisting and free-composed media –– digital archive film and photos, freehand and tooled objects, text, synthesized and sampled sound, animation. The three panels may be taken to be static compositions, but in fact they are in considerable motion. I take advantage of the space afforded by a gallery setting –– a significant part of any impact this piece may have on the viewer is the opportunity to physically move from one panel to another. The audio is composed in three broad segments, mirroring the visual composition.
–Michael Lasater  
Selected exhibitions:
Third Annual Juried Exhibition, Athens Institute for Contemporary Art, Athens, GA, September 23 – November 12, 2017, 2017. International juried exhibition. Juror: Harry H. DeLorme, Jr.
Crossroads New Media. A special exhibition of work by Indiana new media artists Michael Lasater, Constance Edwards Scopelitis, and Jason Myers. Long-Sharp Gallery, Indianapolis, IN, April 15 – September 1, 2016. Curator: Rhonda Long-Sharp.
Media specifications:
Video triptych: three 1920 x 1080 HD video panels, stereo, continuous loop.  Non-synchronous. Digitized archive photos and film, freehand and tooled digital objects, text, animation, synthesized and sampled sound, animation. Production media: uncompressed .mov. Exhibition media: Blu-ray; H.264 streaming media players; HD flatscreens.
Contents
Oracula (2014/15) Left Panel 
Timeo Iocasta (2015) Center Panel 
Ecce Rex Noster (2015) Right Panel