The
perfect future game is a play in seven acts, in which two
men play seven hands of poker. As a closet drama the play
is a philosophical dialogue; designed to be read rather than
performed live on stage it does not concern itself with theatrical
action. The poker game introduces an element of luck but also
of design, where there are only two alternatives: choices
based on the hand that’s been dealt, or the embrace
of a love of fate that allows chance or probability to direct
the future.
Seven paintings depict seven memories of a fictional character,
the artist, who has returned to document the site of each
remembrance. As dislocated moments they are wedged in a cleft
of time, like screen memories, except they’re not concealments,
it is only that memory’s return continually devours
the future, thwarting time’s progress. With the present
being split in two directions at once, our encounter with
the past remains irresolute (as it does with language and
the future perfect tense). The perfect future game manifests
a promised emancipation: liberation through an unfolding of
the past into the future, as the card game assigns each of
the seven memories to a date in the 2007 calendar year. A
formula has been designed by a mathematician that encompasses
365 days of the year, as the sum of all the pips in a pack
of cards is equal to 365 (with the inclusion of the joker
as a value of one). Wagering with one hundred 2007 calendars,
the players steal time. And while scrutinising the individual
memories they expose the accountancy that incarcerates time
within human constructs like language, clocks and the calendar.
The perfect future game is a propositional piece; it can be
performed and played by anyone and the artist’s memories
substituted with those of any other person. The poker game
was live at the Gertrude Contemporary Art Spaces performance,
the actors instructed to make their own interpretation of
the script.
Lily wishes to
express her sincere gratitude to Don Bridges and Drew Tingwell
for their inspired performances, Brian Furness the card dealer,
Dr David Odell and his perfect future formula, Justin Clemens,
Anton Ostoja, Jack Hibberd, and Harry Evans & Sons Billiards
Tables.
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