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THE SPECTACULAR VERNACULAR REVUE

by The Prize Budget for Boys

The Prize Budget for Boys’ Spectacular Vernacular Revue energizes the reader with a fabulous satire of everything under the sun. From Pac-Mondrian, a high concept video game, to a spoof of Language writing, this Toronto arts collective, first convened in 2001 makes new media, performance, video games, and now a book. Read it, look at it, wonder how they decided to do this stuff. Roof Books is sure you’ll have a wonderful look and read.'The Spectacular Vernacular Revue' is a new media performance art show actively performed between 2001-2003 that explored the performative possibilities presented by two bodies, two laptops, two projectors, and two screens with audio. The Revue draws on tropes from dramatic dialogue, corporate power-point presentations, poetry readings, lectures, video games, music videos, slide shows, and television.The Revue participates in the abundance of competing images, sounds, and text experienced in the contemporary mediascape. When we watch 24 hour newsfeeds on CNN Headline News, there's a talking head in the upper left corner, a three line news feed immediately below, then two or three tickers with stocks and sports feeds, and other information on the right side of the screen. Inspired by this condition of overload, the Revue provides multiple linguistic systems simultaneously that compete for the audience's attention, including two live voices, projected texts and images, and a screen showing live speech recognition of the performance.Some of the material found on the Clubhouse was used in the show, along with readings and dialogues between Percival Peabody (Neil M Hennessy) and Tristan Parish (Jason LeHeup).'The Spectacular Vernacular Revue' was presented to audiences in Toronto, Ottawa, Vancouver, Calgary, Buffalo, and New York City in different venues including art galleries, bars, classrooms and a corporate boardroom.