An adaptation of the 1886 musical "Alice in Wonderland: A Dream Play for Children" by Henry Saville Clark and Walter Slaughter, Fotopoulos' feature length film propels the Clark/Slaughter score into the 21st century digital age. Sculptures, drawings, text, and original music are used to explore the late 19th century's evolution of painting, literature, and theatre into early photography and moving pictures.
The piece probes the interplay of art and science and in exploring these ideas certain lives and themes are touched upon - the relationship between John Ruskin and Lewis Carroll, Ruskin's theories on drawing, Thomas Eakins' painting and his use of photography, the burgeoning of early cinema with Eadweard Muybridge and Etienne-Jules Marey, notions of amateurism and professionalism in art and the archetype of the condemned artist. The work is presented in two acts, remaining faithful to the musical's original construction based upon Carroll's narratives.
"Alice is a multimedia opera presented in the form of a single-screen movie...At the center of the proceedings is a medium close-up of a very beautiful young woman who appears in two guises...Although her face almost never changes its expression, it seems very much alive, thanks to the talent of the actress and Fotopoulos's filmmaking. One fully believes that the drawings (most of them charcoal-shaded outlines on a coral ground), which cross-fade seemingly in front of her face and behind her head, are projected from her psyche."
- Amy Taubin, ArtForum
"The perception of solid form is entirely a matter of experience. We see nothing but flat colours; and it is only by a series of experiments that we find out that a stain of black or grey indicates the dark side of a solid substance, or that a faint hue indicates that the object in which it appears is far away. The whole technical power of painting depends on our recovery of what may be called the innocence of the eye; that is to say, of a sort of childish perception of these flat stains of colour, merely as such, without consciousness of what they signify, - as a blind man would see them if suddenly gifted with sight."
- John Ruskin
"The centre lines in red represent the general axes of weight and of action and are deduced from a consideration of the centres of gravity of small horizontal sections of the figure. Which centres joined form the continuous lines. In the thorax this line approaches the back outline rather than the front because first of the shape of a section of that region and second because of the position of the lungs of little weight. These lines are maintained throughout their curves by increased action of the muscles on the convex parts of their curves by ligaments or by the resistance of bones only. Such lines form the only simple basis for a synthetic construction of the figure."
- Thomas Eakins
" You cannot imagine how exquisite is the fine detail portrayed. No painting or engraving could ever hope to touch it. For example, when looking over a street one might notice a distant advertisement hoarding and be aware of the existence of line or letters, without being able to read these tiny signs with the naked eye. With the help of a hand-lens, pointed at this detail, each letter became perfectly and clearly visible, and it was the same thing for tiny crack on the wall of building or the pavements of the streets."
- Samuel Morse
Music
Alice in Wonderland: A Dream Play for Children 1886
Score by Walter Slaughter and Script by H. Savile Clarke
Produced & Arranged by Ben Hanna
Musical Interpretations & Performances by Tim Garrigan, Keith Burton, William Snowden, Kevin Estwick, Tobi Parks, Jack Petracek, Bill Emerson, Ben Hanna, Eric Hall
Original Music Produced, Arranged, Composed & Performed by ONO
Travis, P. Michael Grego, Rebecca Pavlatos, Jesse Thomas, Shannon Rose Riley
After Production Mix by _bledwhite_
Original Music Written & Performed by Rahdunes
Nate Archer, Aaron Coyes, Indra Dunis, Sunny Walker
2010, high-definition video, 99min, color, sound stereo
245 drawings
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