GOB SQUAD
´Super Night Shot´

Gob Squad work collectively, without a director, on the concept, design, devising and performing of their work. Permanent members of the group are Sean Patten, Berit Stumpf, Sarah Thom, Simon Will, Bastian Trost and Johanna Freiburg. Other artists are invited to collaborate on particular projects. For Super Night Shot, Gob Squad are joined by performance / video artist Elyce Semenec and actress Laura Tonke as well as sound designers Sebastian Bark and Jeff McGrory. Assistant: Nina Tecklenburg, Production manager: Eva Hartmann. Commissioned by Volksbühne am Rosa-Luxemburg-Platz Berlin. With research and development funding from the
Arts Council of England East Midlands. Performance in Tallinn is supported by British Council in Tallinn and Goethe Institute in Tallinn

I want to feel important.
Just for a moment I want to be the one who is special.
I don’t want to blend into the crowd – I want to stand out.
I want to be noticed.

I want the red carpet, and an umbrella held over me to protect me from the rain and the flashing paparazzi. I want the best table in the restaurant. I want the finest wine and the chef to thank me for eating there. I want people to wonder who I am.
I want to be driven away in an ambulance….no…a police car.
I want to be hand cuffed to a police man, he has to be tall and handsome
I want to be body-checked before getting into the car. I want a large crowd of passes by to stop and be shocked, when the police find drugs on me – no….a gun.
I want a barking police dog – a German Shepherd.
I want the onlookers to think I am a hard man, someone to be reckoned with, a rebel, a loner, a misguided youth – no – I‘ve changed my mind I want them to think
I‘m a jealous lover about to commit a crime of passion…a rich jealous lover, out of control and unable to hide my emotions which I‘ve suppressed for years. I want the crowd to hold me back as I struggle.
I want a slow-motion struggle, sirens, blue flashing lights….

Super Night Shot*
Instant Video Journeys From The Streets of your town

Super Night Shot is an hour-long multi screen video event filmed one hour before the audience arrives. The film contains no cuts and is produced with four video cameras by four performers in the streets of the host city. In the movie the city becomes a film set, a place in which cigarette butts in the gutter are props and everyone is a potential extra, friend, lover or liberator. This is the movie of their lives, their chance to shine. The audience waiting to see the film, becomes the final scene as our heroes return home from their fantastical mission. One hour before their audience arrives, the four Gob Squaders meet, arm themselves with their video cameras and start them simultaneously. With their watches synchronised they state their manifesto with military precision:
„... each of us is just one in a million, easy to replace and easy to forget in a town that doesn’t really need us....but don’t worry....we’re going to change all that...we’ve got a plan...this town will need us and this film will be our witness...“
Embarking on a „War Against Anonymity“ they set off into the night to prove that the „city really needs them“. Working under the constraints of the time limit (the length of the DV tapes) the group set out to fulfil the mission and hopefully capture its magic on camera. Many obstacles will need to be overcome, a stranger for the screen kiss will have to be found. Camera angles will need to be thought out and extras assembled. A publicity campaign will need to be co-ordinated and the right location for the all important climax will need to be found.
The journey towards a „Final Moment“ will be filled with various interventions. Members of the public will be involved in various scenarios. Sometimes the film will become a rap video, a musical or an action movie. The final fifteen minutes will escalate into a set of filmic clichés from screen kiss romance to tragic downfall, from car chase to heroes welcome, unwittingly enacted by the waiting audience. The four video cassettes are immediately synchronised and played back so that all four images are viewed simultaneously by the audience. A sound artist mixes the sound live and at moments adds touches of filmic soundtracks.
Super Night Shot is a magical journey through the night time streets of a not too distant city. Full of unexpected surprises the public become co stars in a movie that celebrates unplanned meetings with strangers. Often comical and moving, „Super Night Shot“ attempts to elevate the banality of everyday life into the glamour and glitz of the big screen blockbuster. After its highly acclaimed premiere in Berlin, Super Night Shot was ranked in the top ten of best shows for 2003 and is currently waging its war on various Cities all over Europe.
Super Night Shot creates a film that comments on our relationship to the urban environment. A film that is both magical and banal, that is at the same time a product and a process.
It continues to work with the aesthetic previously developed in other Gob Squad productions such as „Where Do You Want To Go To Die?“ in which the audiovisual experience weaves between everyday ambience and highly emotional performance moments. The use of multiple perspective is further developed from their recent show „Room Service – Help Me Make It Through The Night“. In this audience witness four people live in separate hotel rooms via four large monitors. This setup not only creates the opportunity for spontaneous performance coincidences, but allows the spectator to get an overall perspective on what is essentially four „stream of conscious“ realities. The effect can be humorous, moving and tragic as performers contradict each other and confess to the cameras their real feelings and motivations for things.

*Super Night Shot – is a special mode on video cameras which uses an infared beam in order
to observe events in dark conditions. It has the appearance of a very dramatic ghosting effect.