Film is so pervasive that you forget it's a young medium and its conventions still conservative. How often, for example, have you seen a story played out on two screens instead of one? On reflection it's not such a radical idea, but seeing it done by Belgian multimedia artist Wayn Traub, it's quite remarkable.
He places his screens beneath the outstretched arms of a statue of Salome, bare-chested and in Christ-like repose. On one, we watch the Flemish Radio orchestra take position in a recording studio to play a sumptuous score by Wim de Wilde. On the other, we see a murder case played out in a Brussels assize court - the judge entering with the same ritualistic pomp as the conductor.
Perfectly synchronised, the two films take turns to grab our attention, a gap in court proceedings allowing us to focus on the music and the telling of an animal fable. This story is taken up by two live performers, Marie Lecomte and Simonne Moesen, using masks, archly choreographed gestures and sweet operatic song.
Lecomte and Moesen can be seen in court, meanwhile, as the accused and the prosecution in a sordid decapitation case involving a fancy-dress party in a recording studio (the very same) and a compromised priest. In high soap-opera style, the characters reveal their secrets, the plot doubles back on itself and a witness turns out to be the guilty party.
In this second part of a trilogy inspired by Christian icons, both fable and court case take their cue from the story of John the Baptist. Like a Salome destroying the thing she most desires, Moesen plays a snake so desirous of a bull that she causes its death. On film, her love for the priest leads to similar destruction.
The result is cinematic in effect and theatrical in ambition; like a Heiner Goebbels performance, as memorable for the music as for the clever technological tricks.
· Until October 22. Box office: 0845 330 3501.
