PROJECT

They Might be Giants

They Might be Giants is a series of orchestrated visions, composed with audiovisual scores and embodied sketches based on form and musicality. Animated lines, shapes and other visual complexes emerge and glide past from the body and its environment, undulating and vibrating, shooting forward and interacting with musical qualities such as harmony and dissonance, polyphony and rhythm, volume and silence. An optical poetry unfolds where the ear can see and the eye can hear, relying on acoustical laws and optical expression to create a sensory encounter between the viewer and the object of art. Measure, synchronicity and perspective are being crafted within the body and its graphic environment, manipulated and transformed, exploring the delineations between artificial andnatural, animate and inanimate, ethereal and monumental.

They Might be Giants is an attempt to encapsulate a modern form of expression that is significant for both art and popular culture.
Bits and pieces of antique statues, mickey-mouse-like creatures, pixilated and indexical figures, functional designs, icons and miniatures, hollow bodies. a constellation of archaic form, screen saver and mobile statuary. Under the guidance of music, the body and its plastic environment open fields for childlike creativity and sustained spectatorship. Experiencing the spectacular through a key hole, the project foregrounds issues of the viewer’s perception through the relationship of sensory experience and the forces of technology, in a world where our visual capacities are being over stimulated by constant media.

Steven Michel

After graduating from P.A.R.T.S. in 2010, Steven Michel has been working as a performer with choreographers, play and film directors such as David Zambrano, Falk Richter, Lukas Dhont, Daniel Linehan and Maud Le Pladec a.o. Over the last seven years he has become a long- time collaborator of Jan Martens.

Parallel to his career as a performer, he also develops his own work. In 2014, he began a research based on the theme of 'audio-vision', the relation between sound and image in popular culture and performing arts. This research led to the creation of his solo 'They Might Be Giants' (2016). Steven is currently working on his upcoming performance, 'Affordable Solution for Better Living', in collaboration with the visual artist Théo Mercier. Their work will premiere in May 2018 in Annecy (FR).

Credits

Concept, direction & performance: Steven MichelScenography: Charles&SarahMusic: Anna MeredithProduction: Curtain Call ProductionsCo-production: WorkspaceBrusselsWith the support of: CAMPO, TAKT Dommelhof, STUK, wpZimmer