Rebekah Johnson ‘The Hamlet Panels’ by Debora Alanna

['Who is watching who is watching you?' Abstracted from the Shakespeare play, Rebekah Johnson's 'The Hamlet Panels' explores the notion of a private life lived publicly, through the use of Plexiglas, fluorescent lights, and security cameras.] from the invitation to this exhibition on Facebook.
“All the world's a stage, And all the men and women merely players…” As You Like It Act 2, scene 7. Oops. Wrong play. Rebekah Johnson is watching us watching as we watch each other watch through films of suspension from video input devices. Her ‘Hamlet Panels’ develop shadowing that bares us, with manipulation. Johnson impressively melds her former scenographer interests with her new juncture of sculptural installation work.
Suspending Plexiglas in 3 sets forms corridors where we are able to be staged by her inventive spacial ploy. Banking florescent lights in rhythmic groupings of 3 x 3 a la a Dan Flavin/Donald Judd combo horizon sets our stage. Although seemingly clear, without duplicity, this wily work has the feeling of entrapment. (‘Mousetrap’ is the name of the play within the play within Hamlet). We can see an influence from Allan Kaprow’s 18 Happenings in 6 Parts, (“The Sandwich Man") from 1959. In 1600ish circa Shakespeare, Giovan Battista Aleotti (1546-1636) introduces the flat (not angled) wing in Ferrara. Johnson explores a long historical allusion to panels in stagecraft.([1]) Johnson’s work unifies these seemingly divergent traditions.
Between two extensions of suspended translucence in the foremost corridor, Johnson has suspended 3 welded rods, a suspended place marking referring to staging, askew - also demonstrating a conspicuous imbalance that marks challenges resulting from the crossing of lineage/space creating a minimized fused bond, physically impenetrable, viewable from the sides without the frontal and back distortion of tough plastic, secure from our walking into this private space. This sequestering of an ‘Intimacy Gradient’ (“The term 'Intimacy Gradient' has become sociological shorthand for 'improving the emotional usability of a social space', after this key passage in Christopher Alexander's essay.”) ([2]) prevents us from trespassing through this inaccessible, intimate passage. This is the heart of the installation. Johnson presents a traversing intent that navigates us into a dialogue about personal connectivity, protecting this attachment in spite of adversity. Again, a theme in Hamlet.
3 security cameras scrutinize our meanderings through her ruse. 3 screens record? or at least reveal the subterfuge of our saunter through her work in a separate, open alcove. Like Hamlet, there is watching; he watches, he is watched, sends others to watch behind tapestries, curtains and other concealment, and most interesting is Hamlet’s cloak of emotional deception. (Hamlet’s Act 1 alone has 15 references to watching.)
The reference to 3s is a direct relation to Shakespeare’s play. Threes galore, there. 3 spells upon the poison to kill a king, a discussion of 3 parts to thought, three chances to kill Hamlet, to name three.
Johnson’s sculptural installation provokes us to engage with the space, other gallery participants/players, and brings us to an emotional stance by her/our need to observe us observing others. There is no complacency.
The seemingly commonplace horizontal lights, covered by opaque Plexiglas (the suffix plex- of Plexiglas means to stroke or strike) bring us round and round and round our crossing between and around panels, guiding us, encouraging us, and simplifying the idea that we are going somewhere. We are getting there. ‘There’ becomes the moment of realization of cameras on the scene. We are struck by her camera invasion into our private movements, as all movements are when noted, especially demonstratively while in a public place.
Early as 1916, the Futurists began involving technology to create a “synthesizing and technological theatrical form”. ([3]) Johnson succeeds in synthesizing theatre and sculpture, employing technology to variegate notions of space, our formalized assumptions and private ventures hung pithily. The elegance and quiet of this work distracts us from a reveal that queries our existence (“To be, or not to be" is the opening line of a soliloquy by Hamlet, Act 3, Scene 1) through impaneling, judged by the screen viewers, at least. Just as Hamlet’s cast is killed off by conjecture, Johnson shows we must not assume that if we can see through something that we see everything.
Fifty-Fifty Arts Collective -13 January  to 4 February 2011-2516 Douglas St-Victoria BC

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[1] Oscar G. Brockett. History of the Theatre. Boston: Allyn and Bacon, Inc. 3rd edition. 1977.
Kenneth Macgowan and William Melnitz. The Living Stage. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Pentice-Hall. Inc. 1955

[2] http://www.generalhotel.org/26
[3] Marinetti, Filippo Tommaso (1996) ‘The Founding and Manifesto of Futurism’ (first published in French, 1909). Trans. R.W. Flint. In The Twentieth Century Performance Reader, edited by Michael Huxley and Noel Witts, pp.289-293. London and New York: Routledge