Towards a staging of James Hogg's Private memoirs and confessions of a justified sinner

Abstract

This practice-based research project stages a multi-modal engagement with James Hogg’s The Private Memoirs and Confessions of a Justified Sinner (1824), approaching the novel not as a narrative to be adapted but as a textual resource to be mined for performance material. Drawing on Manny Farber’s concept of “termite art,” the work privileges exploratory, process-led creation over the pursuit of a fixed artistic vision, embracing digression, incompleteness, and productive cul-de-sacs.

The project comprises three principal strands. Text Experiments interrogate Hogg’s layered, metafictional structure through procedural and algorithmic manipulation, including John Cage–inspired mesostics, concordances, “contextics,” and Markov chain “drunk walks.” These techniques reframe the novel’s language in abstract forms, fostering an intimate, tactile knowledge of the text while resisting reductive interpretation.

sung songs all translates the textual experiments into vocal sketches, deliberately countering operatic traditions of narrative and emotional saturation. Fragments derived from algorithmic text processes form the basis for restrained voice–language interplay, maintaining semantic tension and inviting collaborative development into staged performance with dance and live video. The approach draws on the theatrical philosophies of Pina Bausch, Raimund Höghe, and Michael Clark, privileging spatial, gestural, and sonic composition over linear storytelling.

MFSB (for soprano and live video), developed with singer Lea Shaw, extends the text-mining approach into a fully staged work. It uses concordances of selected words as structural anchors, juxtaposing fixed-notation and open-score sections to foreground performer–composer dialogue. The integration of live video projection, rehearsal footage, and colour-coded improvisation frameworks explores the novel’s themes of doubling at textual, musical, and visual levels, while maintaining a minimal technical footprint for versatile staging.

A Justified Movie is an experimental film retracing Robert Wringhim’s final journey through the Scottish Borders, shot on location with minimal equipment. Parallel to the text experiments, algorithmic “random walk” editing in MaxMSP/Jitter generated non-narrative sequences, juxtaposing static durational shots with point-of-view footage. Found location sound—wind noise, incidental field recordings—was processed into the final soundtrack, reinforcing the visual dialectic of movement and stasis.

The commentary reflects on the practical, theoretical, and philosophical dimensions of working in abstract form, informed by supplementary studies in performance philosophy and aesthetic theory. Procedural constraints and minimal materials are shown to open creative possibilities, foregrounding form as a primary carrier of meaning in the absence of narrative. The project reframes opacity, contingency, and non-linearity not as barriers but as conditions for open-ended performer and spectator engagement. By constructing frameworks rather than delivering closed statements, the work seeks to create performance spaces that invite personal interpretation, emotional resonance, and a sustained, termite-like engagement with both process and material.

Date of Award	3 Dec 2025
Original language	English
Awarding Institution	University of St Andrews Royal Conservatoire of Scotland
Supervisor	Alistair MacDonald (Supervisor)