Jo Taylor-Jones
Title Half the Speed and Twice the Intensity
Half the Speed and Twice the Intensity - YouTube (click then turn the volume up)
In order to transform, there must be risks and losses.
Half the Speed and Twice the Intensity recalls the experience of an intensive improvisation (comedy/ drama) workshop during summer 2025. A video collage links between different configurations of self as artist, performer (theatrical and music) and therapist-lecturer explored via the lens of comfort versus transformation. Whilst I am in a physical location to learn or perform, the psychical and emotional ‘place’ feels more distinct but harder to explain.
Different mediums best represented different themes; allowing paths in and manipulating sand and charcoal for transience, clay for abstract embodiment of armouring and flaws, physical performance for skills and struggles, and video of burning upright matches for the unpredictability of outcomes. A charcoal ‘figure’ attempts to move towards the light but as he does so, loses much of his pigment and composition as it flies off the board. I asked myself, ‘If he loses the darkness, is there anything left of him?’, and in many ways this typifies the message of the piece as a whole; in order to transform there must be risks and losses.
Bill Viola, whose term ‘distortions’ to mean “differences between the recorded object and the actual object caused by the physical characteristics of the recording media” was of interest as I grappled with the photograph or film item being the artwork in itself, rather than presenting an image transparently for the viewer to assess a phenomenon beyond the picture plane. Further, Lynchian diagetic vs non-diagetic sound was played with for atmosphere; three soundtracks play simultaneously with gaps in the monologue (bottom right) video sound, resulting in rain on the theatre roof, camera motor, birds, match strikes, footfall, spoken word and children playing moving in and out of ‘belonging’ to what’s being watched. I want the viewer to experience shifting attention and having to manage several competing things simultaneously, echoing my experience of learning improvisation.
Chance, experimentation and improvised material also feature heavily in the piece, and while John Cage did not approve of (musical) improvisation since it “takes you back to what you know”, and used chance only to create replicable content, I use opportunities such as this for growth and shifts. This further illustrates the experience of needing to be uncomfortable as a means to an end.
It is satisfying to be able to express something and to try to get close to that which is hard to describe, but more so if others may relate to it and so I hope to bridge the gap between my frame of reference and the viewer’s.
“Future aims for the ideas arising from this piece are to expand on discrete themes and to see whether the same resonance can be achieved by focusing on a single theme rather than the juxtaposition of several. I am interested in charcoal and clay to start looking at the embodiment of change and the cycle of renewal and expansion.”