On Wednesday 21st October 2015, there will be a coach trip to experience Absent, a site-responsive performance realised by pioneers working in this field: dreamthinkspeak.
The work has simulated a Hotel in Shoreditch Townhall, London and, along with a very special guest, performers appear to be stewards and hotel workers. Spectators are taken on a journey into the past of the central character, Margaret de Beaumont, whom we first meet in a low-budget version of the Hotel.
We explore the actual history of the building, investigating architectural features and anomalies, but we are also taken on an experiential, kaleidoscopic journey into time-looped video, which appears in models, on walls and, in one memorable instance, in the caste-iron oven that originally was used to cooked food.
Throughout the installation, we meet ghosts of Margaret de Beaumont, who has inhabited the Hotel since the 1950s and is reluctant to leave.
The trip is aimed primarily at 2nd year students who study site-responsive performance, but will be opened to 3rd & 1st years closer to the time.
