‘NoBody There’: A talking bench activated by sitting participants shares inspirational quotes

Tyler Saunders
Thu, 18 Mar 2021 00:39:26 +0000
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The creator of Nobody There: Tom Dugdale. Credit: Courtesy of Tom Dugdale

A new exhibit at Hopkins Hall aims to recreate the feeling of day-to-day interactions with complete strangers — an aspect of life that has become less common during the pandemic.?

“NoBody There” is an interactive theatrical installation created by Tom Dugdale, assistant professor in the Department of Theatre, Film and Media Arts, that focuses on encounters with strangers through a collision of visual art and theatre. Dugdale said his inspiration stemmed from interactions with strangers, which the pandemic has turned into a rare occurrence.

When someone sits down on the motion sensor park bench at Hopkins Hall Gallery, they will hear the voice of Dugdale, reading out loud from a series of inspirational texts.

“I was sort of interested in this idea of what it is like to have a stranger sit down next to you and share something,” Dugdale said.?

“NoBody There” aims to explore “intimate encounters with strangers –– how impossible they are right now and how beautiful they will be to recover on the other side of this pandemic,” according to the exhibit’s event page.

Dugdale said the texts touch on ideas of connection and disconnection, trial and error, love and loss, and more. Written by Dugdale, he said they range from poems to songs to short stories.

“They were all written during the pandemic in the fall of 2020, so they are all responding to this distanced and isolated world that we have been experiencing for the last year,” Dugdale said.

The texts are between one to eight minutes long, and they are randomized in order to give a consistently unique experience to participants, Dugdale said.

Fake trees and environmental sounds create the illusion of a park in Hopkins Hall Gallery. Chris Zinkon, the residential technical director in the Department of Theatre, Film and Media Arts, said the bench was a borrowed prop from Pickerington North High School Theatre and he designed the motion sensors to trigger the sound cues.

Zinkon said the production began during winter break, but Dugdale first had the idea during the fall semester.

For future theatrical installations of “NoBody There,” Dugdale said he hopes to include student work.?

“I would love to work with our playwriting class in theater because I think that it would be very cool to have students generate short pieces to replace my pieces,” Dugdale said.?

However, students did play an important role in the production of the exhibit.?

“Everybody that worked on constructing it is in the production practicum classes,” Zinkon said.?

Dugdale said he wants visitors to be open to exploring their relation to the speaker of the text.

“If the speaker of a text seems to be a certain character, who does that make you as you’re listening?” Dugdale said.??

“NoBody There” is on display from March 18-26 from 11 a.m. to 4 p.m., and pre-registration is required to visit Hopkins Hall Gallery with free admission.