Li-E Chen, 15 January 2017

Making a silent opera at the invisible museum.

Where is the invisible museum? It can be anywhere. I AM A MUSEUM. I am curious

how this is going to develop after I declared and be witnessed by the DandD 12

participants that I become an institution of ‘nothingness’.

Summary:

I made myself ‘invisible’ and visible on the day 1, and I made myself visible and

‘invisible’ on the day 2.

As I was invisible anyway, so even if I am there, people can't see me. I was really

encouraged. Towards to end when I was about to close the invisible museum, four

participants visited the museum, and participants declared themselves ‘invisible’ so we

could see each other. We then had conversation for different things, and had a chance

to read the beginning of a ‘visual libretto’ for a silent opera that contains a series of

propositions on ‘nothing’. These are created from my two years duration invisible art

project, 'n-1' (ACE supported project). I call these collection of writing as the work of

arts, stage direction, visual libretto for a silent opera, and performance, inspired by

Deleuze and Guattari, and many other artists and thinkers who are also in the

propositions.

“The artist creates blocks of percepts and affects, but the only law of creation is that

the compound must stand up on its own. The artist’s greatest difficulty is to make it

stand up on its own.” Deleuze and Guattari.

I wrote to Robert Wilson about my dream of building an ‘invisible’ museum. On my

way back to London, I received an email from Robert Wilson, I was so excited and

now my dream has come truth over the weekend of being at the DandD. Thanks so

much for Theatre Bristol and DandD12 everyone!! Super amazing!

The session I called, ‘Making a silent opera at the invisible museum.’ on twitter 2 -

3am #DandD12 I was awake and wrote:

Invisible museum becomes a place to write my silence opera possible now.

Before you can hear the music, you will need to declare yourself invisible.

Can you hear the music of a silence opera from the invisible museum? I am

hearing it …

Above was my plan to work on the day, because of my friends joined me on Sunday to

the event here and they were expected to see something at my ‘invisible’ museum. I

turned out to become invisible instead, I did not stay in my own session for all day until

toward the very end. I felt as soon as other are expecting to see something from my

work, it would not work. But when other are coming to be there without expectation, it

often work better in my work.

So I will work on the session in the future again when I have time and space to do

artist residencies, and tour the ‘invisible’ museum while I can also write my silent

opera. I would like to think that this silent opera would be a groundbreaking piece.

Even if this may not be truth, but I would like to think it is, then it become the new

reality.

Can you hear the music of a silence opera from the invisible museum? I am

hearing it …

Li-E Chen

Building an ‘invisible’ museum: I AM A MUSEUM 2017

Performed the experiment at the Devoted and Disgruntled 12: What Are We Going To

Do About Theatre And Performing Arts Now? The Passenger Shed at Brunel's Old

Station, Bristol

Photo: Paul Whitlock

n-1 Museum Collection: No Records Match This Set of Find Request 2017

Images:

Tags:

dandd12, mini DandD, Opera, museum, invisible, Silence, nothing, metamorphosis,

experiment, DandD12, becoming, silence, opera, groundbreaking, silent