WHATEVS~4~EVS

2014 | bangkok

THE KING’S FOOL / The picaresque Soliloquy of a banished Arbitrista jester, time-traveling from the 17th century Spanish Court to Bangkok Sathorn Unique, there & tomorrow.

SCREENINGS: Bridge Gallery Bkk 2014. Chicago Biennial 2015. TARS Gallery Bkk 2015. LUFF  Lausanne Underground Film & Music Festival 2016.

CREDITS: from a concept by M4, Camille Lacadee & Francois Roche, with Vongsawat Wongkijjalerd, Amaury Thomas; Cast/ Nui; Hair & Makeup/ Suwannee Surachescomson, Taweesit Mannark; UPenn// Scenario/ Jacqueline Martinez, Walaid Sehwail, Rhea Gargullo, Peter Wildfeuer; Film Direction/ Jacqueline Martinez; Cinematography/ Walaid Sehwail; Sound/ Rhea Gargullo; Lighting/ Peter Wildfeuer; Scenario & Script Development/ Jacqueline Martinez, Peter Wildfeuer; Art Direction & Props/ Rhea Gargullo, Walaid Sehwail; Production Assistants/ Billy Wang, Michael Royer, Hyeji Yang, Geongu Lee; Grotto Design/ Michael Royer; Grotto Fabrication/ Billy Wang, Michael Royer, Hyeji Yang, Geongu Lee; Grotto Installation/ Billy Wang, Michael Royer, Hyeji Yang, Geongu Lee, Jacqueline Martinez, Walaid Sehwail, Rhea Gargullo, Peter Wildfeuer; Editing/ Camille Lacadee

The picaresque Soliloquy of a banished Arbitrista[1] jester[2]
 (from the 17th century Spanish Court to Bkk Sathorn Unique[3], there & tomorrow[4])

[1] . The Arbitristas were a group of reformers writers in 17th century Spain. The arbitristas were concerned about the decline of the economy of Spain and proposed a number of measures to reverse it. Among other that immigrants should be encouraged to re-populate Castile; that fields should be irrigated, rivers be made navigable, and agriculture and industry be protected and fostered.
[2] . The Jester Don Diego de Acedo is one of a series of portraits of jesters at the court of Philip IV of Spain by Diego Velázquez. The breeze that blows through these paintings, overwhelms the tension and anxiety of the Spanish court, transforming it into a carnival freak show, a comic representation of the human condition… wounded, distorted, and blemished…
[3] Sathorn Unique BangkokThe Sathorn Unique is a 49-story building, located in downtown Bangkok, built in 1990. At 80% construction, it was abandoned in 1997 (Asian financial crisis) and never completed. Locals insist the skyscraper is haunted and call it the “Ghost Tower”.
[4] There & tomorrow / here & now / Jetztzeit was translated as “here-and-now,” in order to distinguish it from its polar opposite, the empty and homogenous time of positivism. Walter Benjamin uses this term in his ‘Theses on the Philosophy of History’ to describe a notion of time that is ripe with revolutionary possibility, time that has been detached from the continuum of history. It is time at a standstill, poised, filled with energy, and ready to take what Benjamin called the ‘tiger’s leap’ into the future. It isn’t naturally occurring, however, and takes the intervention of the artist or revolutionary to produce it by ‘blasting’ it free from the ceaseless flow in which it would otherwise be trapped.