DramaLit Blog 1.0: BU School of Theatre

Hey everyone,

So I was telling my mom about our dramaturgy class last week and was explaining the vastness of the position. She, like many of us at the beginning of the course, thought that dramaturgy was solely about researching the time period surrounding the piece. I attempted to explain the many facets and limitless duties of a dramaturg and she was very surprised. She then asked me if I had heard of the new exhibit at the Museum of Fine Arts called “The Clock”. She thought the art work directly related to the work of a dramaturg, in a sense. She briefly explained “The Clock” to me and after doing some of my own research, this new installation sounds really cool.

“The Clock” was created by artist Christain Marclay who has been exploring the overlap of fine arts and media for 30 years. The piece of art took two years to complete with the help of several research assistants. His goal was to find movie clips that featured any type of clock, countdown, wrist watch etc. He compiled these thousands of clips and strung them together in motion with an actual clock. The video then becomes a 24 hour, all day, all night, loop of various movie clips expressing the present time in which you are watching the art work. Every minute of the day is accounted for through these media clips. It is a cinematic speed through of varying characters, settings, plots, moods, styles, genres, legendary actors…

Now, I haven’t seen this exhibit yet (which by the way cost the MFA about $250,000 to install) but I feel like getting over there as soon as I can to see what clip he found for 7:46 pm or 8:35 pm or even 5:24 am! I can’t imagine how tedious this process was to create. Critics say there is a perfect synchronization between clips and the video as a whole is an amazing cinematic survey. In a way my mom was correct, this piece of art contains a wealth of dramaturgical meat to grill through each hour for 24 hours. I can’t stop thinking about how innovative this project is and how it is a highly creative look at the art of time. Audience members will no longer just look at a clock to receive the given time and process how long they have until their next task is but rather they are experiencing a clock in the most profound way. They are forced to spend endless amounts of TIME  in order to value  TIME all while being reminded what TIME it is in the world. I think it’s such an awesome way to push the boundaries of what art really is. In a way this exhibit has opened my mind up to the possibilies of the fine arts just as my idea of the dramaturg was carved out a bit more in the last three weeks.

I think we all need to go see this exhibit as soon as we have the TIME. Which, as we all know far too well, can be hard to come by these days…

“The Clock,” which was first seen in New York and London, is here at the MFA for a limited amount of TIME – until Oct. 10th. There is a 24 hour open screening on Sunday Oct. 9th starting at 4pm and ending on Oct 10th at 4pm.

If you want more information this video is a great BBC cover story of “The Clock” when it was in London, Nov 2010.