Marisa Carnesky: Trapping the Audience in the Fantasy — Instinct, the Body and the Magic of the Experiential

Abstract

Marisa Carnesky: I come to things quite instinctively. One thing leads to another, like a jigsaw puzzle or a road map. I’ve always had a strong idea about what I’m interested in and I make shows about that. I have always had a strong visual and conceptual approach and I’ve always been drawn to like certain things very passionately. What I’ve done over the years is put things together in odd orders and called them my shows. So, rather than pinpoint all the various elements that I’m drawn to, such as the carnivalesque, to define each separately, I’m drawn to a series of influences that lead to other influences and it builds like a mushroom cloud. I start with a small palette, so I might be interested in Jewish mythology and I’ll mix that with these old dolls and I’ll mix that with my interest in stripping at that time, so things come together and they form a fabric. It’s not that I want to fit things together than don’t fit, or that I want things to fit together hand-in-glove, I want to find an interesting idea that I find exciting. What happens with a good idea, which is usually a fusion of other good ideas, is that it develops and becomes stronger. So the first incarnation may have holes in it and then I refine it, making it coherent, so that it becomes something interesting for people to experience.