Recognition (1996)
Recognition was a solo performance with a text by Fiona Templeton and developed in collaboration with the late Michael Ratomski, who also appeared on videotape. Michael originally also performed in the work; he died before it was finished. Once he was unable to participate physically, he continued to advise, and the piece became a solo, interacting with him on videotape shot on stage, at home, and in the hospital. Recognition began as a play about the fictions we invent to deal with "reality." Its characters are named after its performers. Crucial to the dialogue is the fact that Michael had AIDS; the word is not used, but the work confronts mortality, and whether anyone can represent the experience of another. The play is set in a court, as characters give witness to different personae, places, and interpretations. The video monitor with the footage of Michael functions as a character in the space, "sitting" and being moved in a chair. The "play" and place gradually disintegrate to leave the real absence, and the audience is made complicit in the struggle to create meaning in the face of mortality. Video camerawork was by Darryl Turner and Roy Faudree.
Recognition premiered at The Kitchen, New York, and at the ICA, London in 1996. It was seen at the Cambridge Conference on Contemporary Poetry, Leeds Conference on Women and Text, and Norwich Gallery.
A review of Recognition from the January 1997 issue of Artforum can be found here.
photo by Paula Court