Analysing Oscillation as a Metamodern Art Method in James Rowland's 'Learning to Fly'

Keywords: oscillation, metamodernism and, solo performance

Abstract  

As metamodernism begins to be identified more widely within the medium of theatre, this essay investigates how theoretical concepts of oscillation as a tool of metamodern theatre making are beginning to be explored. Challenging early constructions of oscillation by Vermeulen and Van den Akker, this essay refocuses the significance of oscillation through the work of Dember and his concept of metamodern art methods. Rerouting oscillation as an art method within performance practice, the essay then shifts focus towards analysing applications of oscillation and its impact within theatre through the work of James Rowland’s Learning to Fly (2022)

From the tirival to the cosmic...James Rowland. Photograph: Murdo MacLeod/The Guardian

Defining oscillation as a metamodern art method  

In early conceptualizations of metamodernism through Timotheus Vermeulen and Robin van den Akker’s essay ‘Notes on Metamodernism’ (2010), the concept of oscillation has been touted as a core facet of metamodernity. In their essay Vermeulen and Van den Akker propose that the experience of the metamodern is that itself of ‘oscillating between a modern enthusiasm and a postmodern irony, between hope and melancholy, between naiveite and knowingness…’ (Vermeulen and Van den Akker, 2010 :5-6), of an everchanging space between modernism and postmodernism, their related values, styles and performativity. Metamodernity has therefore become characterized by ‘oscillation between a typically modern commitment and a markedly postmodern detachment’ (Vermeulen and Van den Akker, 2010 :3), between modernist ‘attempts to render human subjectivity in ways more real…to present consciousness, perception, emotion, meaning and the individuals relation to society’ (Childs, 2000 :3) and the postmodern condition which ‘represents a decline of faith…seek[ing] local or provisional, rather than universal and absolute’ (Woods, 1999 :11), holding the view that there is a ‘loss of direction’ (Woods, 1999 :11) and the ultimate ‘rejection of modernism’ (Woods, 1999 :10).

Therefore, according to Vermeulen and Van den Akker, the experience of metamodernity is defined by an experience of oscillating, a perpetually shifting and ‘unsuccessful negotiation, between two opposite polls’ (Vermeulen and Van den Akker, 2010 :8). However, theorists such as Greg Dember propose that oscillation is in fact only one of several concepts or devices which are valuable in defining the evolving practical toolkit of artists, arguing that although the concept of oscillation and its enactment are indeed identifiers of metamodern experience they are not definitive articles but instead part of the metamodern art experience. In Dember’s articles ‘After Postmodernism: Eleven Metamodern Methods in Art’ (2018) and ‘Metamodernism: Oscillation Revisited’ (2023), Dember argues for different notions of oscillation outside the reductive binary proposed by Vermeulen and Akker. Dember argues that oscillation is more than ‘to and fro…back and forth’ (Vermeulen and Akker, 2010 :8) but instead is a ‘dynamic between opposing aesthetic sensibilities, not merely opposing beliefs, or…opposite pairs’ (Dember, 2023). Dember regards oscillation not as a condition of metamodernity but a method, describable as metamodern, through which art could be made. Oscillation, as an art method, becomes a tool through which a genuine and concerted possibility of striving towards ‘earnestness, enthusiasm, and universalism’ (Dember ,2023), and reaching for ‘solidarity of the felt experience’ (Dember, 2023) can be made. Dember orientates oscillation as a way for art(ists) to ‘revive the positivistic aspects of modernism while retaining postmodernism’s awareness of context and irony’ (Dember, 2018), curating an opportunity for artistic pendulum swing within artworks and enabling the art(ist) to experiment and engage the audience in an ever-changing ‘non-committal multi-perspectival sensibility’ routed within an ‘enthusiastic sense of convicted certainty’ (Dember, 2023) that engages ‘two [or more] oppositional factors without them cancelling each other out, nor landing in the average zone between them’ (Dember, 2023).

Therefore, oscillation is ‘just one aspect of the metamodern sensibility among many’ (Ceriello and Dember, 2019 :46), having evolved beyond simply alternating ‘to and fro or back and forth’ (Vermeulen and Akker, 2010 :8) but instead amongst, around and within, playing in that space. Oscillation becomes more than Vermeulen’s original conception, developing into an opportunity for  ‘earnestness, enthusiasm, and universalism’ (Dember, 2023) to be engaged within art, moving consciously, with consideration and effect, between subject matter, medium of performance, mode of delivery to create artworks which are routed both in modernist ‘attempts to render human subjectivity…to present consciousness, perception, emotion, meaning and the individuals relation to society’ (Childs, 2000 :3), whilst actively centring new ideas of ‘solidarity of the felt experience’ (Dember, 2023), and postmodern concerns with objectivity, of ‘seek[ing] local or provisional’ (Woods, 1999 :11), as well as for effect, comedic purposes, to curate dynamic shifts in performance and to engage.

Analysing oscillation as a metamodern tool within James Rowland’s Learning to Fly  

Having understood oscillation as a metamodern art method this section of the essay will analyse how oscillation is used within Learning to Fly (2022), analysing both the narrative content and performative delivery of the piece to gauge how oscillation is used to unveil the evolving narrative, exploring how that narrative oscillates through registers of ‘happiness, sadness, loneliness and loss’ tackling ‘the profound truths about what it means to be human…[and the] ridiculous mess of it all’ (Love, 2022), as well as how Rowland’s delivery of that content oscillates through ‘controlled use of silence and space’ (Love, 2022), as well as ‘building up tension and emotion through the music’ (Marsh, 2022) to produce a score which ‘combines with words [and silences] carefully smithed in a rhythmic, evocative script’ (Quinn, 2023) and discuss how the swing between the two making both the more meaningful’ (Marsh, 2022).

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Oscillation through narrative content of ‘Learning to Fly’ 

Principally, Learning to Fly (2022) oscillates through its narrative content as Rowland interweaves a narrative which accumulates through a combination of different compelling anecdotes. In shifting the evolving narrative through ever-changing moments of hilarity, sobriety, calamity and insight across the performance Rowland, in the view of March’s ‘Learning to Fly by James Rowland: Review’ (2022),’carefully selects [these anecdotes] to tell his story of happiness, sadness, loneliness and loss’ (Marsh,2022) between his younger self and his elderly neighbor Ann. Instigated by Rowland from the beginning of the performance he unveils, piece by piece, this intricate description of Ann and her house. Goodman, a colleague of Rowland’s, notes in ‘Appendix III – Songs of Friendship: A Storytelling Cycle’ (2018) that this gradual unveiling is stylistic of Rowland’s work which, through these anecdotes ‘a depth of detail starts to emerge…and the story gains in texture and depth and richness’

(Goldman,161:2018). Rowland evokes Ann’s world with a precision of detail, noting being ‘…uncomfortable on the linoleum floor, as on the small kitchen table she sat, hunched, over a Daily Telegraph cryptic crossword, scratching out in perfect capital letters in pen, she always used pen never pencil, she didn’t make mistakes…’ (Learning to Fly, 2022), and using this intricacy of curated texture and depth to find a profundity of ‘two spaces that remained clear of those piles [of cryptic crosswords]…the armchair and the record player, a sacrosanct space’ (Learning to Fly, 2022) before revoking all seriousness or sobriety of the description and shifting onto a ‘weird tangent pop up’ (Goldman, 2018 :161) in which the performance undergoes a complete shift in register to focus on a proposed business opportunity ‘that might sound a bit like child labor, because it is’ (Learning to Fly, 2022) where Rowland details his vision for a business of children in ‘overalls…on pedal vans…pedaling off to go fix someone’s iPad’ (Learning to Fly, 2022).

According to Love in ‘Learning to Fly review – a riveting, remarkable hour of theatre’ (Love, 2022), Rowland ‘repeatedly sets up [these] tropes and expectations only to knowingly subvert them’ (Love, 2022) in a continuously developing narrative, evolving ‘layers of heart tugging complexity’ (Love, 2022) which are engaged with an ‘earnestness, enthusiasm, and universalism’ (Dember, 2023) for each subject before shifting onto the next. Learning to Fly is therefore continuously oscillating between what Lucy in, ‘Review: Learning to Fly’ (2022), notes as an ‘emotional honesty, kindness and compassion’ (Lucy, 2022) present within those tender moments, and its complete opposite in the reverse instances of flippantly comedic asides interspersed throughout.

These two narrative registers, of equal importance, oscillating between one another, both reaching into a ‘joy, wonder, sadness, vulnerability, triumph…in our everyday life’

(Dember, 2018) that Dember identifies within metamodernity and oscillation, directly engaging with a space that is both ‘non-committal [and] multi-perspectival’ (Dember, 2023) through those asides, whilst also driving at a ‘sense of convicted certainty’ (Dember, 2023) translated via Rowland’s ‘puppyish enthusiasm…boundless energy’ (Love, 2022) as the whole narrative of Learning to Fly  ‘connects the trivial to the cosmic’ (Love, 2022), oscillating between those registers of earnestness, engaging description and light-hearted comedic aside to achieve a performance which captures the ‘profound truths about what it means to be human’ (Love,2022) through an ‘unexpected…but wickedly funny’ (O’Donnoghue, 2022) oscillating narrative.

Oscillation through performative delivery of ‘Learning to Fly’ 

In addition to engaging oscillation through narrative content, Learning to Fly (2022) further oscillates through the ways in which Rowland comprises the performative delivery of the piece via score and sound, notably Beethoven’s 9th Symphony in D Minor delivered through a manually operated on-stage record player, registers of silence, and those moments in-between. As Quinn observes, the whole performance ‘exists in orbit around a vintage portable record player’ (Quinn, 2023), which Rowland uses as a tool to manoeuvre the story onwards through the underscore it provides, ‘building up tension and emotion through the music’ (Marsh, 2022) and curating a ‘backdrop to the key moments of this friendship…[translating] his story of happiness, sadness, loneliness and loss’ (Marsh, 2022) before, as with the narrative content which oscillates between profound sincerity and flippant aside, Rowland shifts the registers ‘swiftly turning [the music] off with little warning’ (Marsh, 2022) leaving the audience to deal with the ‘emotion of his heart-wrenching lines head-on – no dramatic orchestral music to hide behind’ (Marsh, 2022). However, the impact of  sudden silence is not limited to its existence in that moment but is instead part of a greater poetry which underscores the whole piece, as Learning to Fly ‘consistently returns to them [the record player] to manifest the show’s love affair with Beethoven’s choral masterpiece’ (Quinn, 2023) evolving the performance through music and the silences, engaging both registers ‘without them cancelling each other out, nor landing in the average zone between them’ (Dember, 2023) but instead delivering a whole new meaning to the narrative and its registers with ‘the swing between the two making both the more meaningful’ (Marsh, 2022).  

According to Love, this everchanging relationship between a grand orchestral symphony and Rowland’s controlled use of silence throughout the performance, ‘allows story beats to land and sit with us’ (Love, 2022). The orchestra returning and fading away, intentionally moving from cacophony to emptiness, from a ‘Scream!...[that is] like heaven and hell are meeting in the middle of your brain’ (Learning to Fly, 2022), to abrupt weighty and motivated silences, delivered with ‘seemingly boundless energy…brilliantly controlled’ (Love, 2022) enables Rowland to centre the ‘solidity of [his] felt experience’ (Dember, 2023), to share his story with the audience as expressively as possible. These registers therefore enable the performance to ‘emit [Rowland’s] delight and pain’ (Quinn, 2023), the music and the silence oscillating to unveil moments of ‘ecstasy…humanity…essential truth (or the essence of something inexplicable and intangible but real?)’ (Lucy, 2022) within the narrative, that connects the

‘trivial to the cosmic’ (Love, 2022), emphasises the profoundness of this friendship between

‘this lonely teenager and his enigmatic neighbour’ (Love, 2022) and the whole narrative’s ‘texture and depth and richness’ (Goldman, 2018 :161).

Overall, Rowland’s use of score and sound successfully oscillates between orchestral accompaniment and weighted intentional silence, the different registers complementing one another, acting as ‘backdrop[s] to key moments’ (Marsh, 2022) through which Rowland delivers his story of happiness, sadness, loneliness and loss’ (Marsh, 2022) without either register ‘cancelling each other out, nor landing in the average zone between them' (Dember, 2023) but instead curating a different meaning where

Conclusion

In conclusion, Learning to Fly (2022) successfully oscillates through both its narrative contents and performative deliveries, accomplished through negotiating the spaces between profound narrative and flippant aside, delivering a story about the ‘profound truths about what it means to be human’ (Love, 2022) overlaying this deep meaning narrative which ‘carefully select [these anecdotes] to tell his story of happiness, sadness, loneliness and loss’ (Marsh, 2022), in a ‘modernist enthusiastic sense of convicted certainty’ (Dember, 2023) about his story, with ‘weird tangent pop up[s]’ (Goldman, 2018 :161) that dispel the momentarily held sincerity connecting the ‘trivial to the cosmic’ (Love, 2022). Rowland repeatedly sets up these various tropes and expectations before ‘knowingly subvert[ing] them’ (Love, 2022) and moving in a different narrative direction completely, ensuring his performance oscillates between the two positions by remaining ‘non-committal [and] multi-perspectival’ (Dember, 2023) despite the sincerity and earnestness of the narrative. Moreover, Rowland’s use of score and sound successfully oscillates between the orchestral accompaniment and those weighted silences, using the underscore to ‘build up tension and emotion through the music’ (Marsh, 2022), accompanying the piece as a ‘backdrop to key moments….[as Rowland shares] his story of happiness, sadness, loneliness and loss’ (Marsh, 2022), whilst in the same vein ‘swiftly turning [the music] off with little warning’ (Marsh, 2022) to force the audience to deal with the ‘heart wrenching lines head-on – no dramatic orchestral music to hide behind’ (Marsh, 2022). These components successfully engage in a pendulum swing as the piece shifts between them and through them ‘without them cancelling each other out, nor landing in the average zone between them’ (Dember, 2023) but instead the registers complement one another to curate different meaning, different responses with the ‘the swing between the two making both the more meaningful’ (Marsh, 2022).

Overall, the whole performance combines through content and delivery to conduct itself in an ever evolving manner which curates a continuous swinging between ‘layers of heart-tugging complexity’ (Love, 2022) that centre the ‘solidity of felt experience’ (Dember, 2023), of the profound truths about what it means to be human’ (Love, 2022), of Rowland and Ann’s experiences together, and those tangents of hilarity and absurdity, that all nevertheless combine to connect the ‘trivial to the cosmic’ (Love, 2022).

 Bibliography  

Ceriello, L. and Dember, G. (2019) ‘The right to a narrative, Metamodernism, paranormal, horror, and agency in The Cabin in the Woods’ , in Caterine, D. and Morehead, J.W. (1st ed.). The Paranormal and Popular Culture: A Postmodern Religious Landscape. London: Routledge, pp.42-54.  

Childs, P. (2000) Modernism. London: Routledge

Dember, G. (2018) ‘After Postmodernism: Eleven Metamodern Methods in Art’ WhatisMetamodern.com, 17 April. Available at: https://medium.com/what-ismetamodern/after-postmodernism-eleven-metamodern-methods-in-the-arts-767f7b646cae (Accessed 27 November 2023).

Dember, G. (2023) ‘Metamodernism: Oscillation Revisited’ WhatisMetamodern.com, 26 February. Available at: https://medium.com/what-is-metamodern/metamodernism-oscillationrevisited-b1ae011abf3c [Accessed 27 November 2023]

Goldman, D. (2018) ‘Appendix III’, in Rowland, J. Songs of Friendship: A Storytelling Cycle.

London: Oberon Books Ltd, pp. 161.

Learning to Fly by James Rowland (2022) Directed by James Rowland [Anatomy Lecture Theatre, Summerhall. 3-28 August].  

Love, C. (2022) ‘Learning to Fly review – a riveting, remarkable hour of theatre’. The Guardian, 14 August [Online]. Available at: https://www.theguardian.com/stage/2022/aug/14/learning-to-fly-review-james-rowlandsummerhall-edinburgh (Accessed 1 December 2023).

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https://oldfirestation.org.uk/2022/09/22/review-learning-to-fly/ (Accessed 1 December 2023).

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 Notes  

i For explication of other metamodern art methodologies, see other sections of Dember, G. (2018) ‘After Postmodernism: Eleven Metamodern Methods in Art’. WhatisMetamodern.com, April 17. Available at: https://medium.com/what-is-metamodern/after-postmodernism-elevenmetamodern-methods-in-the-arts-767f7b646cae