Creative responses to Shell's 'Oedipus'; ('Shell Sells Suicide' now posted)

international | arts and media | press release

Thursday October 09, 2008 23:59

by Noisy Joe

Shell is sponsoring the National Theatre's new production of 'Oedipus',
and, unsurprisingly, Art Not Oil is preparing a response on various
fronts. We're asking people if they're up for making an artwork of some kind as
a response. This could be an image, song, film or poem to appear on our website, or
to be printed on a postcard or something similar. We're open to ideas. (Unfortunately, we aren't able to pay
for your work, but we have no wish to possess it!)

If this is of interest, we'd love to see it as soon as possible, as 'Oedipus' runs until January 2009 only.

For example, the Carbon Town Cryer just posted a song called 'Shell Sells Suicide' on his maspooce:
http://www.myspace.com/ecstaticmourningrevue

This is an expanded version of the song we sang outside the Natural History Museum in 2006, in protest at Shell's sponsorship of the Wildlife Photographer of the Year exhibition, (which it no longer sponsors!)

Here below are the words (and some), with an extra verse to coincide with 'Oedipus' at London's National Theatre, Oct-Jan 2008-9. More about 'Oedipus' is below. More about Art Not Oil is here: www.artnotoil.org.uk

*********************
'Shell Sells Suicide'

there’s a bird dressed in black
there’s a world nearly cracked
there is me, there is you
what the hell shall we do?

it’s not hard to explain
all the ways we can gain
from a world without oil
no more spills, no more spoils

Shell sells suicide on the forecourt
Shell sells suicide
Shell sells suicide with such forethought
(or) Shell smells sweet gas over in Rossport
(or) Shell smells sweet oil in Port Harcourt
Shells sells suicide

(Verse from a Shell AGM:)
There I stood with one share
Asking Shell - could it care?
When I knew it could not -
Of Big Oil let's get shot

Shell smells sweet gas off the seashore in Mayo
they think it’s theirs just ‘cos the government says so
but they forgot about the will of the people
and the people of Mayo say ‘No, no, no, no, no, no, no -
it’s Shell that’s got to go!’

Shell buys South Bank silence completely
Shell sells wild lies
Shell kills wildlife and still smiles so sweetly
Shell kills wildlife

Here I stand by the river
Asking it what it plans to deliver
‘Will you dump a hundred thousand tonnes of water
Into the foyer of that Shell-sponsored theatre?’
The beauty of that irony I can live without

there’s a bird dressed in black
there’s a world nearly cracked
there is me, there is you
what the hell shall we do?
-------------

Food for thought can be found in the Shell's Wild Lie gallery:
http://www.artnotoil.org.uk/gallery/v/Shell/

Let us know if you'd like some quotes from the play to help get a sense of
their production, or a more detailed Shell critique.

We could do with a hand designing a basic 'What's wrong with Shell?'
postcard as well.

If these aren't for you, how about letting us have any work you think may
fit the bill for the 2009 Art Not Oil online gallery? Also, we're looking
for help with our website, and designers for a book we're putting together
about the project so far.

Thanks and good luck,

----------------------------

This is what the NT says: 'The people of Thebes look to Oedipus to lift a
terrible curse from them and their city. He consults the oracle and learns
that he must root out the late king’s murderer. But his relentless
interrogation of one man after another leads inexorably, and in the space
of a single day, to his own savage conclusion...You are who you are
seeking to find.'

This is taken from Wikipedia:

Oedipus (pronounced /__d_p_s/ in American English or /_i_d_p_s/ in British
English; Greek: ____π___ Oidípous meaning "swollen-footed") was a
mythical Greek king of Thebes. He fulfilled a prophecy that said he would
kill his father and marry his mother, and thus brought disaster on his
city and family. This legend has been retold in many versions, and was
used by Sigmund Freud to name the Oedipus complex.