A Camouflage Opera (2019)
Audiovisual design for Kurtág - Attila József, Fragments
The audiovisual design of Kurtág - Attila József Fragments, performed by opera singer Judit Molnar on November 29th, 2019 in Australia.
Kurtág's fragments were composed of the poetry of interwar writers, specifically Attila József (1905-1937), the "proletariat poet" of Hungary. Kurtág highlights József's mental illness and his infatuation with organic decay. Due to these concepts, three aesthetic themes emerged: organic, political, and personal decay. These themes were mapped with Felix Guattari's "ecosophy," which is the cyclical nature of interrelated ecologies and anthropogenic ecological degradation. Keith Armstrong's "ecosophical praxis", based on Guattari's ecosophy, was embodied in the audiovisual performance design, proposing a form of art practice on the understanding that our ecological crisis is also cultural, driven by our sense of separation from ecology.
