To disrupt the rhetorical moment: that instant a person with privilege leans into their taken-for-granted assumptions. The idea that those beliefs are widely shared, unquestionable, remain unchallenged, and will have no reply. Not to be interrupted.

Walter Benjamin imagines a theatrical scene where an act of family violence is interrupted by the arrival of a stranger. He uses this story concept to describe the mechanisms of epic theatre. Oops! is a literalisation of Benjamin’s concept. The look of the stranger renews the look of the viewer, shocking them into seeing a scene of impending violence anew, from the perspective of an interloper who sits outside the ideological context of the narrative.

Oops! imagines three different stories of conflict within contemporary Australia. It considers the power relations between class, race and gender that are played out in household settings and experiments with the interrupting techniques of montage as well as Benjamin’s intruding stranger.

Cassandra Tytler is an artist working across single-channel video, performance, and video installation. She is particularly fascinated by the symbolism of popular clichés, and within her work pastiches isolated and fragmented cultural conventions as an exploration of the power relations that are created and get repeated within them. She has exhibited, screened, and performed work nationally and internationally. She has gained funding from organisations such as the Australia Council, The Ian Potter Cultural Trust and The City of Brimbank Council. She completed her practice-led PhD within the Faculty of Art (Theatre Performance) at Monash University in 2021.

She has received support and fellowships from numerous organizations such as the Monash Academy of Performing Arts, NARS Foundation, NYC, Druskininkai Artists’ Residence, Lithuania, Sumu Artist in Residence program, Turku, Finland, The Camargo Foundation, Cassis, France, The Cité des Internationales, Paris, The Australia Council, The Ian Potter Cultural Trust and the Dame Joan Sutherland Fund, American Australian Association, NYC. In 2020 she won The Noel Counihan Commemorative Award and in 2021 was shortlisted for the Footscray Art Prize.

Tytler has exhibited work in galleries such as The Torrance Art Museum, L.A.; F.A.C.T. Liverpool; Gallery Titanik, Turku, Finland; Harold Golen Gallery, Miami; The Counihan Gallery; Gertrude Contemporary Art Spaces; Seventh Gallery’ Westspace; Trocadero Art Space; KINGS Artist-Run; Melbourne, Australia; Plimsol Gallery, Tasmania, Australia; Metro Arts, Brisbane, Australia. Her films have screened in numerous festivals internationally. She has done her live video performances around Europe, and in both Miami and Melbourne.