The work will appear as part of a programme curated by the Winterstory project as part of Jeune Création 2010.
The work entitled Divertissement, mimics the theatrical grammar of the 'intermission', reproducing such an intermission in the performance programme as a device in order to critique notions of affect and the constitution of empathy. It does this not only within performance as a genre but also within the media at large, particularly exploring the manipulation of affect by the international news media in service of political and military ends. In an extension of a Brechtian device from the theatrical field into the pseudo-theatrical, ambiguous constructed reality of the media field the work seeks to draw to the fore the deployment of aesthetic affect as a form of political operation within media spheres.
