The Power
of Proximity

Performance · The Skoll World Forum

The 2018 Skoll World Forum opened with a poem, on the forum’s own theme: the power of proximity. Darius Simpson performed it live in Oxford while the animation played on three screens behind him, big enough that he stood inside it.

It isn’t an illustration of his words. My part was the first of three, a mixed-media piece that moves the way the poem moves, with a voice of its own — two voices at once. It runs from our earliest days as humans, through struggle, to now, and what proximity has meant the whole way.

Darius walked on stage with his animated shadow beside him, and from there the picture moves with him — not only with his words but with his body. That was the idea: it should look and feel like the screen is answering him. In reality there was one cue for the animation: go. No operator, nothing that could hold a beat if he needed one. He rehearsed for weeks so it would feel like his words were driving it.

It lived on stage for a moment, and then it was over.

Spoken Word · 3 min · 2018

"There’s an electricity in proximity, in our willingness to get close, to be wronged out loud and keep pushing."

— Darius Simpson

He stood inside
the animation

Concept

Darius Simpson stands before giant hand-drawn hands reaching toward each other — The Power of Proximity, Skoll World Forum.

Darius raises his arms beneath a painted blue globe — The Power of Proximity, Skoll World Forum.

Darius stands between two dark towers above a crowd of silhouetted figures — The Power of Proximity, Skoll World Forum.

In a circle of light, Darius stands opposite a shadowy hooded figure as birds fly overhead — The Power of Proximity, Skoll World Forum.

Darius moves among running silhouettes in a circle of light — The Power of Proximity, Skoll World Forum.

Darius spreads his arms wide in a glow of light edged in red and blue — The Power of Proximity, Skoll World Forum.

Scratched words fill the frame: "Human rights," "Refugee crisis," "Fake news" and "Collusion" — The Power of Proximity, Skoll World Forum.

Darius pushes against the word "Equality" as it scratches away into the dark — The Power of Proximity, Skoll World Forum.

Two voices at once

Performance

On stage at the Skoll World Forum in Oxford, Darius Simpson spreads his arms before two projected circles of moonlit landscape — The Power of Proximity, Skoll World Forum.

Darius performs in front of a projected circle of falling lines as a dark figure leaps above him — The Power of Proximity, Skoll World Forum.

Darius stands before a projected landscape of silhouetted figures under a small moon — The Power of Proximity, Skoll World Forum.

Darius spreads his arms in front of a giant projected shadow of himself in a circle of light — The Power of Proximity, Skoll World Forum.

Darius pushes the words and phrases climate change, collusion, ethnic cleansing, inequality and human rights on stage — The Power of Proximity, Skoll World Forum.

Darius reaches toward a projected painted globe glowing above the audience — The Power of Proximity, Skoll World Forum.

The whole screen

The animation as delivered, built as one continuous piece. The performance video cuts to Darius at several points, so parts of this were never on camera.