Christopher Field, MFA ’11
project
Name: Christopher Field
Graduation: 2011
Program: MFA
The penultimate scene in the film “Memento” (Christopher Nolan, 1999), featuring Leonard Shelby (Guy Pierce) and Teddy (Joe Pantoliano) is presented in a Black Box Theatre, on two screens. These screens, facing each other, will represent Leonard and Teddy, respectively, with each character’s audio dialogue split and playing from behind each screen.
Upon entering the “Black Box Theatre*”, the viewer will put on a pair of glasses. These glasses contain a sensor so as to track the approximate direction that the viewer is looking. If the viewer looks at Leonard’s screen, the viewer sees Leonard’s dialogue projected in full-frame text, while Teddy’s screen plays the unedited movie. If the viewer looks at Teddy’s screen, the viewer sees Teddy’s dialogue projected, while the unedited film plays on Leonard’s screen. If the viewer looks somewhere in between, then they see either Leonard‘s or Teddy’s dialogue and the unedited film, albeit peripherally and with difficulty, IE, there is no cross-fading. It is one character‘s dialogue or the other. This experience is intended to give the user/viewer a better understanding of “Memento” characters’ (namely Leonard’s) perspective, always searching for information and unable to locate/retain it.
*Admission to the Black Box Theatre is extremely exclusive and thus can only accommodate one viewer at a time. And that’s if you’re lucky.
One half of the puzzle
Disorientation and confusion, with some information