'THE SINGTERVIEWS - PANIC ROOM'

Cosmic Encounters

In four billion years the sun will turn into a red dwarf, explode and die taking its whole solar system including earth with it.

It's really sad to think that one day no living being would be able to hear a Beethoven symphony or Bach Cantata, so the Panic Room is in fact an imaginary artistic Arc where the opera singer knows she will die, collects as much music and operatic mementos as she can and chooses one person to have one last conversation about music and art.

The piece was created during a residency in Venice, that could be seen as one of the seats of European artistic achievement and due to rising water levels Venice is sinking, it seems to be an allegory of this cosmic event. When one visits the artistic treasures of Venice one is aware of their fragility in this way and that when it does eventually sink many great works of art will be lost to us for ever in the same way on a cosmic scale all the artistic achievement of Man will evaporate.

In PANIC ROOM - The Singterviews™, I explore also, the idea of the sing-terview as part of the Real Time Opera form and establish a character called PANIC, whose only mode of communication is singing. I like the idea that operatic singing that was developed to amplify the natural voice is used in a very intimate way. The opera technique at first is quite strange and distancing, but slowly during the singterview becomes accepted as a normal way to communicate. Panic Room seeks to explore the idea of a very private space made public, surveillance, and the interview form. 

Panic Room seeks to explore the idea of a very private space made public, surveillance, and the interview form. 

PANIC ROOM -The Singterviews™ takes two forms, the live version which is a full evening real time opera:

Act 1: Spy - the audience is observed unseen via CCTV cameras placed throughout the venue. A new age meditation soundtrack is played and over it, unseen, the character PANIC sings a soothing live vocal. Slowly the audience realise that they are being individually addressed,even as they wash their hands or order a beer.during this process an audience member is selected to go into the Panic room with me to be interviewed with the premise that this is the last conversation they will ever have.

Act 2: Panic Room - PANIC and interviewee are in the panic room as the world ends and PANIC has a set of questions that she asks the interviewee about art, life and death. It ends by Panic

and guest dying to the sweet strains of an orchestra playing backward as the panic room fills with smoke and tips gently over the event horizon of a black hole. 

The second version of this takes the form of several short 10/15 min 'Singterviews™' with different people some of whom I know, some complete strangers, that are on PANICROOMTV YouTube channel. 

The live PANIC ROOM was premiered at the Ikon Gallery Birmingham as part of 'The Voice and the Lens 1' festival in 2012, and then went on to the 'Tete a Tete' festival at the Riverside Studio in 2013, 'Die Alte Schmiede' in Vienna 2013 and Kings Place 2014. It also appeared several times at La Plaque Tournante in Berlin.

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