In this PTC Platforms project, Binary Star manifests as a series of very short films designed for dissemination on online platforms. These flash-fiction-like audiovisual travelogues combine the voices of the two primary characters from the eponymous theatrical work-in-progress, music from Stephen Lyons, and moving images of architecture and wilderness captured by a host of collaborators—directors, cinematographers, visual artists—located in various countries.

I decided to share with you my research for Binary Star in this way because, in keeping with the themes and tensions within  the developing theatrical text, I seek to merge intimacy with expansiveness, to think of these characters both as ostensible free agents navigating a world tangled in ongoing crises and as binary stars, lovers haplessly locked in each other’s orbit, tethered to an unclosed narrative. The intimacy emerges through the recorded voices and Stephen’s music, while the expansiveness emerges through the images of places the characters have visited and been affected by, from repurposed edifices in Cartagena and Istanbul to wildernesses in Costa Rica and the Canary Islands. Lastly, this project was an opportunity to counterweigh the solitude of writing with the camaraderie of collaboration across media—my favourite kind. Part of Binary Star concerns the pandemic, and these collaborations, largely undertaken from great distances, serve as a balm for this era of isolation and longing to traverse the wider world.