Dinnerfor1

Abstract

'Dinnerfor1' is a 4 monitor video and sound installation which was first exhibited at the British Council Berlin as part of Transmediale Berlin in February 2005. DinnerFor1 is a woman talking to you. Her questions (isolated from the replies using fictional and factual texts) are often universal, so that a viewer is directly engaged: each set of questions is taken from a different source, connoting different strata of society and areas of (public) life. These range from the sensationalist interview into Princess Diana’s private life, through the enquiry into the justification of the Second Gulf War with questions asked of Dr Kelly, the cross examination of Oscar Wilde at his trials to subversive snippets from Wilde’s Importance of Being Ernest. The project consists of four looped videos, entitled the play, the committee, the trial and the interview. DinnerFor1 examines and highlights national identities and their stereotypes in a medium accessible internationally and reflects on the possibilities of communication with virtual acquaintances through the computer and television screen. It was inspired by the cult German television production from 1963, based on a British vaudeville sketch from the 1920s. Dinner for One holds the record for repeated television screenings in Germany. This sketch, starring Freddie Frinton and May Warden, has been shown every New Year’s Eve since 1972. Over the decades it has impressed a vision of the British upon viewers in Germany and other European countries. And yet this TV-production from 1963 is unknown within the UK. The setting of the piece as a permanent online installation and the venues and cities chosen for exhibition (British Council Berlin, Goethe Institute London and Goethe Institute Dublin) reflect and test the complexity of inter-national cultural relations and exchange. Dinnerfor1 was purchased by the Verbund Collection Vienna, in 2006