Splitbeam was involved in providing equipment for the launch season of
collaborative work for The Centre for The Less Good Idea: Season 1, between 1 – 5
March 2017 at Arts on Main in the Maboneng Precinct. The event was the brainchild
of renowned visual artist, William Kentridge, providing artists with a space in which
to explore experimental, collaborative and cross-disciplinary art projects in a non-
pressured environment. The project focused on celebrating and nurturing the
incidental discoveries that occur within the artistic process, providing a platform for
these “less good ideas’ to flourish. The name for the project derives in part from a
Tswana proverb ‘If the good doctor can’t cure you, find the less good doctor’.
Wesley France, local Lighting Designer for many of Kentridge’s performances,
workshops and plays since the mid-eighties has a long-standing relationship with
the artist and worked extensively with William on his collaborations with Handspring
Puppet Company and many of his other projects in the early nineties; notably
lighting productions such as “Ubu and the Truth Commission” and Monteverdi’s “Il
Ritorno d’Ulisse” and touring extensively on the international festival circuit.
A simple rig of 32 Source 4 profiles ranging from 14 to 50 degrees, coupled with a
dozen 1.2k fresnels in the Studio and a handful of Rush LED Pars in the Centre
Room were all that he needed to transform the spaces atmospherically, lighting
each piece as simply as possible with a theatrical feel.
“We have been working with William, via Wesley, since 2010, and amongst other
things have supplied equipment for workshops at his studio at Arts on Main; our
initial project being a workshop for William’s Documenta exhibition,’ says Helen
Surgeson, Key Account Manager at Splitbeam.
At the same time Splitbeam’s sister company, Gearhouse South Africa, was
approached by Yoav Havel from Tintpost to provide a large-scale projection screen
(10m x 6m) with scaffolding support, a Panasonic 21K projector and a small PA at
the end of Fox Street for an outdoor art display, as well as some AV assistance in
room 11 at Arts on Main. “Weather conditions in an unseasonably rainy and windy
week necessitated a whopping 2000kg of ballast to ensure the safety of the screen
but the projection worked very effectively’ comments Gearhouse’ Bill Lawford about
the inner-city installation.
Season one brought together more than 60 practitioners (actors, dancers, poets,
writers, composers, musicians, visual artists, film makers and boxers) under the
guidance of curators Khayelihle Dominique Gumede, Lebogang Mashile, Gregory
Maqoma and William Kentridge in a series of performances and films showcased in
three different venues in the Arts on Main complex, with site-specific performances
at the Kwa Mai Mai market and installations in the surrounding neighbourhood
“This season was extremely well received and we hope to see season 2
materialising soon.’ concludes Surgeson.
