{"id":279,"date":"2010-09-17T21:59:45","date_gmt":"2010-09-18T01:59:45","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/vivamontreal.org\/"},"modified":"2010-09-17T21:59:45","modified_gmt":"2010-09-18T01:59:45","slug":"michael-toppings-single-dwelling-monologues","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/2011.vivamontreal.org\/en\/archives_en\/viva2008\/michael-toppings-single-dwelling-monologues\/","title":{"rendered":"Michael Toppings : Single Dwelling Monologues"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignright\" src=\"http:\/\/www.vivamontreal.org\/2008\/images\/215.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"300\" height=\"232\" \/><em>Single Dwelling Monologues<\/em> is a performance \/ installation  incorporating live and pre-recorded video. It was conceived as  observational theatre and was \u2018written\u2019 as non-fiction fiction both  poetic and sociological. It imagines what it is we do, who it is we are  when alone and when in a state of aloneness. <em>Alone<\/em> because we sometimes are, will be, have been, could be, am, is\u2026<\/p>\n<p>Personal, private, public. An invitation, an invasion.<\/p>\n<p>Performers include Marc Gagnon, Marie-Claire Gauthier, Pierre  Gauvin, Mayi-Eder Inchausp\u00e9, Stephen Lawson, Marie Christine Lavall\u00e9e,  Heather Mah, Nathalie Mamias, Jean-Denis Olharan, Michael Toppings, Gary  Varro and Sarah Williams.<\/p>\n<h3>Biography<\/h3>\n<p><strong>Michael Toppings<\/strong> is a language artist whose  text-based works are rendered through the visual (installation,  architecture), performing (performance, theatre) and literary arts (book  works).\u00a0 His themes are dramatic and banal, tragic and bathetic,  referencing social realism while inverting popular culture. His  interdisciplinary, multi-genre works that fuse narrative and gesture,  portraiture and identity are research into the architecture of language  (verb, adjectives, nouns) as it pertains to meaning and definitions \u2013  what a thing means and what it does not \u2013 that is to say \u201call definition  involves exclusion; in determining exactly what a thing is, we thereby  implicitly determine what it is not. To define a concept is to declare  by one and the same act what it does mean and what it does not\u201d (<em>The Logical and the Translogical<\/em> by Phillip Wheelwright).<\/p>\n<p>Michael Toppings\u2019 extensive body of work include <em>The Mathematics of God<\/em>, <em>The House Project<\/em>, <em>Male Herd<\/em>, and <em>The Manufacture of Zero<\/em>.\u00a0 Aside from his own word-centric productions, Toppings is also a curator and programmer, and is a founding member of <strong>Petri\u2019s Quadrille<\/strong>, a Saskatchewan-based arts\/science collective.<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>\u201cMichael Toppings is able to provoke powerful emotions through  simple words. He can create some of the most intense theatrical moments  by simply putting one man on stage under a spotlight reciting beautiful  poetry.\u00a0\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>Patricia Stevenson \u2013 Ottawa Xpress<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Single Dwelling Monologues is a performance \/ installation incorporating live and pre-recorded video. It was conceived as observational theatre and was \u2018written\u2019 as non-fiction fiction both poetic and sociological. It imagines what it is we do, who it is we &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/2011.vivamontreal.org\/en\/archives_en\/viva2008\/michael-toppings-single-dwelling-monologues\/\">Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":0,"parent":272,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","template":"archivespages.php","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-279","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/2011.vivamontreal.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/279","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/2011.vivamontreal.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/2011.vivamontreal.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/2011.vivamontreal.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/6"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/2011.vivamontreal.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=279"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/2011.vivamontreal.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/279\/revisions"}],"up":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/2011.vivamontreal.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/272"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/2011.vivamontreal.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=279"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}