Theatre/Cinema in a device play
Techno Zombies by Fernando J. Ribeiro
At a time when reality is perceived through the filters of audiovisual screens, where all daily activities take place, the corporeal dimension becomes a mirage for those who look at it in places with no material existence. As the world implodes, individual experience loses any value as it is projected onto devices that don't react to affective and desiring appeals. Using monologues collected at TikTok, The Center of the World reveals how the extreme isolation of its users leads to a radical detachment from themselves; when immersed in an endless psychic labyrinth: “I'm stuck in a strange limbo where I'm a person, but I'm not a person.”
Through virtual reality headsets, the play takes place in a place with no geographical coordinates, a black hole from which the states of mind of those who find comfort and refuge in technological devices erupt. Coming from total emptiness, the characters take on the glowing presence that only ghosts have; inhabiting devices in which the notion of the body no longer includes the fluidity of movement responsible for the fabric of human relationships. As Illusions that are more real than reality, the characters tear away the veil of consciousness to make the audience swing between desire and humiliation, between the joy of identification and resignation to the status of consumers of seductive and lascivious images.
From the spatial tabula rasa in the original blackness, hints of innocence can emerge, enunciating the primordial loneliness of one: “Hello. I love spring.” Functioning as a vehicle for self-awareness of the state of radical absence of identity structure, the apparatus of innocence will be the engine of revitalization: “I only do things because I think they're funny. I'm not real. I want to be real.” Nevertheless, immersed in a hermetic and totally autonomous universe, the characters embody the way in which the impulse for existential plenitude ends up succumbing to the demands of the devices' exploiters: “Whenever I manage to chew through the chain and have a chance of escaping, do you know where I'm going? I'm going straight back to the people who put the chain on.”
In this regime of ambivalence, self-management becomes an imperative that will lead to rampant self-cannibalism, providing beliefs in absolute vitality - “I'm going to be a spider. I'm going to be everything.” -, always alternating with the realization of irremediable loneliness. The extreme dislocation between their quality as spectres and the strident exuberance of their costumes gives a sense of their status as bicephalous monstrosities that can at any moment demonstrate candor or a perversity that, preceded by a seductive charge, devours the audience.
The Center of the World examines how our zombie condition of self-consumption includes a resistance to the mechanics implicit in the technological vacuum, embodied by the NPC (Non Player Character). And the resistance will be carried out through invisibility; through the inability to discern the difference between passivity and insurrection, innocence and perversion, masochism and sadism, conscience and delirium. It's up to the NPC, the mechanical doll with its austere sensuality, to pass on the survival manual in The Center of the World, by announcing an unconscious zone only accessible in a time lapse between 3.30 and 3.33 in the morning. Just as the VR glasses establish a strictly mental reception, the rules enunciated by the NPC guarantee that the appeals of the zone will only be viewed and kept untouched, and always with the aid of a clock; otherwise, “time will deform into nothingness and you won't know when to leave.”
A play with the idea that we are all the centre of the world. Everything and everyone is the centre of the world. It just depends on the point of view. The audience as the centre of the world. Art as the centre of the world. Life as the centre of the world. People thoughts as the center of the world. Empathy as the centre of the world. This project places the viewer inside a light installation where they can enter a parallel reality through virtual reality (VR) headsets. An "illuminated" space that has to be crossed, like the other side of a waterfall, the other side of a mirror.
An installation where the viewer through 360º filming technology and visualization through VR headsets, audience have the freedom to look wherever they want, creating a unique feeling of being inside the performance.
When with the headsets, viewers have an augmented experience of the reality that surrounds them. Creating in the audience the sensation of being watched from all sides, performers virtually surround the audience (filmed by 360º cameras). As if they were the center of the events. By being part of the plot, they can choose where to look. An experience of being inside and outside yourself simultaneously.
The performers (in the scenes filmed in VR) approach the audience from various directions, all the time and in a constant back and forth. The viewer can read the innermost thoughts of these characters (via animated 3D subtitles). They talk directly to the audience and make confessions in their ear.
As in a movie but where the spectator assumes the role of the editor. At the same time they become spies, hidden witnesses of the peoples sadness. This dual experience offers an intriguing perspective and challenges the traditional notion of watching a play.
The main aim of this project is to explore the idea that technology is the "campfire" around which we tell our stories, as mentioned by Laurie Anderson. "The Centre of the World" attempts to capture and explore these individual experiences in a shared environment. A reality that allows us to expand and immerse ourselves in the contradictions of the human being.
Concept, Artistic Direction and Video Camera Ana Borralho & João Galante Performers Ana Freitas, Gustavo Sumpta, Inês Cóias, Joana Bernardo, Marco Mendonça, Maria Antunes Extras Vitória Gomes Molder, Joana Mário, Oscar (dog) Light Design Joana Mário Original Soundtrack, sound recording and sound design Coolgate Audio Mastering Pedro Augusto Text collage from TikTok videos Dramaturgical Support Fernando J. Ribeiro Artistic support Daniel Matos 360º Video Edition Micael Espinha VR 360º Digital Effects David Gabriel Casting and Costumes Alma Mar Make-up artist Sara Marques de Oliveira Executive Direction and Administration Mónica Samões Production and Distribution Direction Clara Sampaio, Andrea Sozzi Executive Production Rita Conde Casabranca's Web Design José Pelicano Communication this is ground control Production Casabranca Co-production Teatro do Bairro Alto, Teatro Viriato, Cineteatro Louletano Support Teatro meia volta e depois à esquerda quando eu disser, Teatro do Vestido, Teatro da Voz - Produções Real Pelágio, MSM Studio, DuplaCena - Temps d'Images ThanksChampalimaud Center for the UnKnown, João Antunes, João Felgueira, Jorge Bragada, Maria João Malheiro Agradecimentos especiais Andrea Sozzi, Joana Flor Duarte
Casabranca is a structure funded by the Portuguese Republic - Culture / DGArtes
Tour manager Clara Sampaio clara.sampaio@casabranca-ac.com | +351 915286519 Artists Ana Borralho anaegalante@me.com & João Galante coolgate@riseup.net
One of the inspirations for the work is the film The Exterminating Angel (1962) by Luis Buñuel
About The Exterminating Angel: The rebellion of society in confinement. In this film, with surrealist influences, Buñuel undresses the aristocratic society, where characters find themselves trapped in a room of a mansion after a formal dinner. There is nothing physical to prevent them from leaving, but something holds them hostage to imaginary doors and bars. As the days go by, social conventions fall away, imaginary barriers remain, and the masks come off each character, bringing out the most primitive instincts: the improvisation of a bathroom, repressed sexual desires, hunger, thirst and even death.