Kurt Hentschlager (Austria/USA)
Feed
British Premiere
Tramway Tues 19 & Wed 20 February 1930
Kurt Hentschlager has created an audiovisual performance will come to experience rather than just watch.
FEED is an immersive performance in which the audience experiences effects and shifting mood in an artificial environment without performers. The piece has parts.
The first half of FEED features a single, larger than life projection: suspended 3D figures move, sometimes synchronized in their motions, following a unified choreography. They float and convulse in a zero gravity world, their movements generating sounds that create a corresponding symphonic drone.
The second part is a composition for artificial fog, pulse- and stroboscopic light, inducing a loss of spatial orientation. A matching soundscape of feedback and intense sub-low bass generates a heightened physical experience. FEED stresses the limits of perception. What evolves is a pure sensation of light projected directly onto the retinas of the spectators.
‘Feed in title is a triple entendre, evoking at the same time an energy flow, a catheter tube and a rather primal form of ingestion – if not cattle chow than at the very least what would have to be an undifferentiated form of gastronomy. As a performance work, Feed similarly conveys an equivalent array of references, portraying the death throes of a herd of humanoid clones, to reveal the nihilistic ideology underlying the shooter-game technology used to create them.’ Claudia Hart, 2006
Chicago-based Kurt Hentschläger creates dramatic audiovisual environments. The immersive nature of his work reflects on the metaphor of the sublime. Between 1992 and 2003 he worked collaboratively as a part of the duo Granular-Synthesis. Employing large scale projected images and soundscapes, his performances overwhelmed the audience with sensory information.
His more recent solo work researches the nature of human perception and the impact of new technologies on individual consciousness.
Bundeskanzleramt : Kunst / Federal Chancellery Austria
Land Oberoesterreich - Kultur / Cultural Dept. State of Upper Austria
A production for the Theater Biennial Venice 2005
NB: Fog, stroboscopes and colour variators are used during the performance and can have possible side effects on over-sensitive, asthmatic, claustrophobic or epileptic people, as well as other effects such as photosensitive sickness or over-stimulation. Tramway and New Moves International are not liable for any incident regarding a reaction by any audience member to the fog, colour variators or stroboscopes. Audience members will be asked to sign a waiver before entering the performance.
www.hentschlager.info