Ways to Move a Cloud

Liz Oakley's MFA Defence
Friday, November 8, 2024 | 3:00 PM
Room 4390 – 149 W. Hastings St., Vancouver

Ways to Move a Cloud is an animation system, an oblique collection of tools for puppetry, and a scenographic skyscape. Queer, cardboard, hand-drawn proxies of clouds hang on yellow ropes, hovering between stillness and motion. A video collage follows the same clouds as they navigate mundane spaces by way of found movement technologies: a clothesline, an escalator. Here, all is imbued with Puppet Vision, a speculative proposition for an altered state of perception that sees everything as potential puppetry; where manipulation gives way to conversation and those things ‘animated’ animate back. Ways to Move a Cloud invites participants to activate Puppet Vision while pulling the ropes to co-create an indeterminate, ever-shifting cloud tableau. The project includes a gallery installation; a series of solo performances; a scored improvisational group performance; and two durational participatory events: The Puppet Vision Experience and Gene Draws You as a Cloud.

Keywords: Puppet Vision, clouds, rope-and-pulley sculpture, animation system, performance, interactive installation, puppetry.