U - the immersive and telematic potential of technology in performance.
An extremely interesting project for video, film-makers and performers with technology skills to be involved in building an immersive environment and participating as buddies in one on one performances as part of U.
Building a network of artists and scientists, CREW (a Belgium based performance group initiated by Eric Joris) has, since 1996, proved to be a pioneer in setting up experiments that blur the border between technology and theatre. These experiments resulted in a radically sophisticated symbiosis.
The group explores new forms of theatricality, thereby taking technology as a starting-point, rather than embedding technology in traditional theatre structures. The artistic outcome tends to be hybrid; technological live art troubles well-installed categories of theatricality. CREW wants to explore how these hybridities can be operated, both on a theoretical and on a practical level. The key question is: What happens when digital technology really merges production and reflection within the context of the stage insofar as one can still speak of a stage?
The real-time stage is the location par excellence to explore the impact of new media on everyday culture. An ongoing dialogue with the developments in robotics and computer sciences triggers the theatrical imagination of design and production as well as in text and sound. Researchers from different universities and different fields of research cooperate in CREW where they find experimental theatre a laboratory in which they can share knowledge and test the progress of their own work.
Generally, in multi-medial theatre, digital media like video and audio are used as a visual cue and expressive means, usually serving as an illustration of the live performance on stage. CREW however, uses technology as a starting point to determine the dramaturgical strategies - not vice versa. The challenge then consists in finding ways to translate technological schemes and structures into dramaturgical and narrative concepts. CREWs operating codes are 'Multimedia as a Prosthesis', 'Radical Confluence' and Reality Engineering. The aim is to remain one of the most innovative multimedia collectives in Europe.
U raging standstill further explores the immersive and telematic potential of the technology in CRASH, CREWs latest performance. In this new piece visitors are welcomed individually and will be the main protagonist of their own 'play', in different levels. Dressed and equipped with a head mounted display, the visitor-'user' is able to physically walk around in a live virtual surrounding mostly in real time.
Like previous projects of CREW, from KAUFHAUSINFERNO (1998), over ICARUS / MAN-O-WAR (2001), PHILOCTETES /MAN-O-WAR (2002, premiere at Bruges, European Cultural Capital 2002), to CRASH (2004-2005), this new performances can be viewed as what is sometimes called post-dramatic theatre, referring to the book with the same title by German art theorist Hans Thies Lehmann. Different of other post-dramatic theatre work however, is the form of CREW's productions in which immersion, interactivity and tele-presence play a key role. This Winter School course offers a unique experience to 6 artists.
If you sign up for this course you must be available for the ten days.
http://www.crewonline.org/