Invisible targets

‘Invisible Targets’ was devised to build upon Peter Seddon’s installation and curatorial intervention of ‘Tête-à-Tête’ at the Musée des Beaux-Arts, Nimes. The major focus was on the English Civil War. ‘Invisible Targets’ by Conall Gleeson responded to the notions of civil conflict, democracy and monarchy that were raised throughout the exhibition. His composition, written for loudspeaker and two snare drums, featured a rhythmic fragment of the command to ‘retreat‘, which would have been played on a snare drum on the seventeenth-century battlefield. The sounds of nineteenth and twentieth-century modes of military communication such as Morse code and radio were introduced, but filtered through the rattle of snare drums placed directly in front of the loudspeakers. Towards the end of the work the muffled voice of Prince Harry is heard talking about his experiences in Afghanistan and, in so doing, drawing a direct line between the political climate of today and that of Prince Harry’s distant ancestor Charles I. Four research staff from the Performance and Visual Art programme collaborated with Gleeson’s Scratch the Surface ensemble to create new works which were performed in the Musée des Beaux-Arts on 21 June 2008, the national day of music celebration in France. Each of these works was experienced in context with the ‘Tête-à-Tête’ exhibition and its central work, the famous painting of Oliver Cromwell looking upon the corpse of Charles I by Paul Delaroche. These war-related pieces, performed at the event in collaboration with Gleeson and the Scratch the Surface ensemble, comprised ‘The Siege of Rhodes’ by Amy Cunningham, ‘Cromwell’s Sorrow’ by Jean Martin and a performance by Mikhail Karikis, titled ‘Between Two Mouths: A Guided Tour’, which challenged the representation of war and the narrative formalisation of history.