The entire installation fits
into a 20-foot standardized shipping container for transportation. When
set up, the installation barely breaks its stored size dimensions,
adding a flat solar array to the roof. The audience enters towards the
left at the open end of the container. They progress down an airplane
aisle width walkway past 10-airplane window sized interactive dioramas
containing miniatures, puppets and video in a contemporary retelling of
the thematic narrative of The Birds. They reach the far end of the
container and find a coin-operated machine, selling the gift of flight,
mounted above a pristine bowl. They place a coin in the slot, turn the
handle and a feather flits down into the bowl, an empty symbol, like the
feather Dumbo felt he required to be able to fly. They turn back and
head down the opposite side of the container, past another ten windows,
a mirror of the other side, but these windows are a continuous display
of the point of view from an airplane window at flight. They exit back
from where they came with their feather.
THEMES OF THE INSTALLATION
The installation invokes abstracted ideas of flight and commerce. The
use of the container forms a connection to commerce and modular
transportation, the solar panels form a connection to the commercial
potential of the sky, and the interior aesthetic evokes the visual cues
of airplanes. These broader abstract gestures find their base in the
themes of The Birds, but also lead into our discussion on sustainable
materials usage and technological integration into art and performance
practices. The Daedalus Container is equally about choosing to approach
the entire system, created by materials, technology and aesthetics, when
executing theater design and addressing the efficiency of using
resources in such a system.
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