Prometheus’ Garden is a performance/installation project, which uses as inspiration and metaphor, the myth of Prometheus. In Greek mythology the best understood story is that Zeus punished Prometheus for stealing fire from the Gods and giving it to mankind; for this he was chained to a rock for 1000 years to have his liver pecked out each day by an eagle.
By taking the fire element from the myth as a metaphor for technology and the garden as a symbol of the world and mindset we now inhabit, we intend to produce an installation piece that will operate as a mechanical sculpture garden during daylight and then morph into a full blown, multi media performance after dark.
The show does not aim to retell the Prometheus myth in a modern form, but more importantly provide an allegory for our modern times, offering a mirror to the spectator and articulating ideas of change both social and environmental. We live in a unique period of human history, where mass consumption is both encouraged to maintain economic and social stability and discouraged to protect our habitat. The show will both create wonder and beauty and offer poetic, dark and playful narrative to modern issues of mankind’s relationship to technology and dependency on energy, without inculcation or dogma.
The showcase will be produced on the 13th October 2012 at Elsecar Industrial Heritage Centre, we expect to invest the show with the companies technical resources and generous quantities of pyrotechnic and combustible consumables to create the most fully realised performance possible for our audience.
The Homunculus is finished! This machine is one of two main characters that combine to become the flame and fire section of the performance. Work is now underway on the ‘Chariot’ build, this machine is complex in its movements and houses part of the video projection equipment.
Design and maquette making has started on all the other main elements for the installation and show. We have plans to build a giant Orrery, Flame Engine, Oracle platform for the performer and an hydraulic Telescope, more on these later, along with news on our funding bids for the project.