Olu Taiwo: 'Dr Kester plays ball to Coltrane'

Dr Kester plays ball to Coltrane' was part of an extended installation over two sites called Avatars of Being... This installation was part of the Second Salon Exhibition at the KUBE Gallery, Poole in 2009 and BODYSCAPES: Exploring body extremes at the PROJECT SPACE @ THE MULBERRY CENTRE, Weymouth 3 - 31 OCTOBER 2009. The installation at the KUBE had 4 exhibits.

1 'Avatars of Being... This was a presented as a 'personal brain' with a network of information about the 3 Avatars with associated videos ( 'Dr Kester plays ball to Coltrane' was one of the videos)

2 Dr says, 'look behind': A Live video feedback presentation

3 Static forms in Movement 1: Sculptural forms based on the Möbius strip

4 Lock triggers memories: An artist's week long resesidences with a performative presentation at the end.

Each exhibit was linked together through a simple colour code. Green for Chief Taiwo, Orange for Dr Elijah Kester and Blue for Lock Weatherwax.

There are 3 main conceptions of an Avatar that featured in this piece; 1- A divine principle made flesh revealed through embodied divine behaviour. 2- An on-line/in game artistic representation and identity of a user, facilitating a character mask with real time agency; . 3- The personal acoustic embodiment of a fictitious characters through mythic play. The installation, Avatars of Being... attempted to explore the interaction between these 3 concepts from a post-choreographic perspective using the moebius strip as a metaphor to illustrate the single plain that exists between the virtual; in-here and the embodied; out-there.

'Dr Kester plays ball to Coltrane'
Performed by: Olu Taiwo
Devised by: Olu Taiwo
Costume by: Olu Taiwo
Filmed by: David Rolfs, Corin Evans-Pritchard
Edited by: David Rolfs, Olu Taiwo
Music by: John Coltrane; Equinox: The Last Giant: The John Coltrane Anthology [Disc 2]