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Showing posts with label interactive. Show all posts
Showing posts with label interactive. Show all posts
Thursday, October 29, 2015
Thursday, October 29, 2015
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"Invisible Treasure is an interactive digital playspace, an electrifying exploration of human relationships, power structures and individual agency." - fanSHEN
I was sold! As I spend most of my nights sitting quietly in a darkened room watching theatre of varying quality, something a bit different always excites me. I love interactive events and some of my all-time favourite theatrical experiences have been in these kinds of productions. Expectations were high.
Invisible Treasure involves the audience (maybe 25 people or so) being herded into a large, minimally designed room with nothing in it except a gigantic plush rabbit. A computer screen high on the wall soon starts giving cryptic clues as to what we're to do. These are miniature puzzles: trying to make music play, doing dance moves, forming shapes and so on. This lasts about an hour or so, then you leave.
I respect the ideas and ambitions behind Invisible Treasure. It's admirable in the way it forces participants to let their hair down and fosters co-operation between strangers. It's also psychologically interesting; exploring submission to authority, leadership roles within groups and how different personality types interact with one another. Similarly, the eventual finale, when we head 'backstage' works nicely.
But the main problem is simple: Invisible Treasure isn't fun. Being ordered around by a impersonal video screen gets old fast and the individual games drag on and on - and then repeat themselves. Structurally the show emulates videogames: but though it successfully recreates their aesthetic it doesn't understand their design.
The first flaw is that the players/audience are often never certain what they're supposed to be doing. There's a couple of moments where this is clear - we're told to form ourselves into simple shapes. But largely we're given cryptic hints like "Make the sound stop." We do, but the game proceeds to repeat itself over and over with flash of red light and angry buzz - apparently we've failed. We're never guided on what we're supposed to be doing or why we're failing. Eventually someone apparently decides we're never going to solve this and the game moves on.
On a similar tack, there's a part where one of the players is summoned to a small room. We're told that she knows something. She emerges and a timer begins - with the enigmatic message: "You know nothing." (you can say that again, Invisible Treasure...). I guess we're supposed to question the summoned player but she seems as baffled as us. The timer ticks down to zero, nothing happens and the game perfunctorily moves on to the next thing. You're left wondering what the point of any of that was.
Without clearly defined rules, goals and rewards there's no sense of achievement or progress. This is literally the foundation of game design - and appears to have been overlooked.
The other main problem is technological. The room is equipped with sensors and microphones that respond to the movements inside. These are a bit glitchy - and it's often difficult to tell whether what you're doing is being picked up by the sensors. In a 'Free Play' session we discover that by waving our arms we can 'paint' the ceiling. Leaving aside that this isn't exactly cutting-edge (EyeToy on the Playstation 2 was doing this sort of thing 12 years ago) it's never actually clear how much impact we're having on our environment
There are bits that do work: though I strongly suspect these are built around the simple method of having someone watching a videofeed of the room and deciding whether we've met the criteria. I don't have a problem if the show wants to play Mechanical Turk with us, especially if the illusion's convincing. But if it's going to do for a few things just go the whole hog: ditch the iffy tech and fake the entire show.
As it stands right now, Invisible Treasure doesn't work. There's the germ of a good idea here, but neither design nor the tech is up to task. I grant that we were warned that the show was in its teething stages and glitches were to be expected; but in my opinion there are deep design flaws that go way beyond opening night jitters. This really needs a rethink.
★★
Invisible Treasure is at Ovalhouse until 14th November. Tickets here.
Friday, November 9, 2012
Friday, November 9, 2012
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| Best gig poster in ages. |
The solar eclipse is a beautiful phenomenon; a perfect convergence of cosmic bodies creates a spectacle like no other. ‘Lysistrata’ at the Electrowerkz last night was impressive in the same kind of way, symbolic, musical and political elements fitting together neatly like thecomponents of a particularly well made pocketwatch. I last saw Gaggle, a 21 piece all women choir, in early July at the Village Underground and they impressed the hell out of me. They're the kind of band that makes a solid and powerful statement standing silent and motionless in their costumes, but then they crank up the volume and let loose with jet engine turbine voices and utterly dominate a room. But last night was no mere gig, it was interactive performance art, political statement and simply, great theatre.
‘Lysistrata’ is a play by Aristophanes first performed in about 411BCE. It tells the tale of the eponymous Lysistrata who stops a war by gathering together a disparate group of women and engaging in a pacifist revolution. Women across Greece barricade the banks, starving the army of funds and deny their husbands sex, giving them serious blue balls. It’s easy to see why this story of weaponised femininity and women working together for a common political aim appeals to Gaggle, as they’re in many regards doing the same thing.
I think most bands would have settled for merely appropriating some imagery and lyrical quotes from the play, but Gaggle aren’t most bands. The ambitious project here is to take over a large building for one night, redecorate it and transport us into a theatrical world. The setting is the atmospheric Islington Metal Works. Inside it's an aesthetically pleasing labyrinthine scumhole (this is not a criticism I'm a big fan of scumholes). The history of its industrial past can be seen in the metal fittings poking from walls and ceilings, coupled with weird passages that maybe were once used to shift horses around the place. There was what looked like bondage equipment scattered around at the back of rooms, which adds a little kinky frisson to the atmosphere.
Ascending the stairs on entry we see that the walls are plastered with sloganeering political posters that set much of the tone for the rest of the evening. In terms of visual design, a lot of what we’re about to experience is borrowed from the iconography of the Occupy movement or other appropriate campaigns of political resistance from around the world, notably Pussy Riot and the Greek anti-austerity protests. So we see posters with ‘NO SEX UNTIL YOU CALM DOWN’ plastered on the walls, Gaggleized bank notes and signs imploring us to “BARRICADE THE BANKS”.
There’s an uneasy feeling as we gather waiting for something happen. Nobody really seems to know what form this gig is going to take, and the slightly nervous tension is increased by the group of people silently staring at us with blue lipstick smeared in an X over their mouths. This fear of the unknown is in some regards a fun bit of anticipation but in others I get a minor feeling of dread that this is going to be too interactive. The stage seems set for confrontation after all; ‘Lysistrata’ is about pitting two sides against each other but which side are we the audience going to be on? Are we going to be siding with Gaggle or fought against as representations of a patriarchy?
After short wait Gaggle make their way to the main stage. Even though I’ve seen them before it’s still a remarkable experience listening to them burst into song as one, being rigorously disciplined and impossibly liberated and anarchic at the same time. The music tonight, aside from one song, is all from Gaggle’s debut album “From the Mouth of the Cave”. The first song they play here is, I think, the introduction song, which serves as both an opening to the album and a way to get us into the spirit of the evening.
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| Gaggle performing, photo courtesy of Zoran Veselinovic |
We’re given a window into the philosophy of the night and Gaggle set out their grievances with a world run by men in power who make bad decisions day in/day out. A world where things get worse by the day, where those with least are expected to bail out the cruelly wealthy. We’re reminded that Lysistrata is a Greek play, and invited to consider the parallels between the current economic climate and the historical misery in ancient Greece that preceded the production of Aristophanes’ play. It primes us for the kinds of political statements and posturing that we’re all looking forward to. But first some Icelandic pop-punk!
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| This is Sindri Eldon |
It’s difficult to say whether Sindri Eldon was the 'support act' tonight because it just wasn’t that kind of night. Rather than exist to get us warmed up and nicely lubricated for the main act, he was sandwiched between two parts of the Gaggle act. Musically the band is high-energy, poppy punk. I don’t know what he looks like normally, but he’s made a concession to the theatricality of the night by painting his face blue and white, which looks great. Unfortunately I don’t think his band fit into the musical and visual aesthetic of the night. I’m not even really sure that the night even needed another band playing. Everything I’d experienced so far had had the effect of sucking me into a constructed reality of Gaggle based imagery. Gaggle warped the space around them so effectively that Sindri Eldon (or indeed other band) felt a bit out of place.
After this the meat of the night begins. As we entered the building audience members were given one of three coloured wristbands. Based on this colour the audience is split up, I was in the white group and led by a woman waving a white flag we headed to the back part of the central room and the ‘parliament’ section.
Here we met Lysistrata, as played by Natalie Sharp. She sat regally in the middle of a group of seven Gaggle members regarding the audience with a superior, disdainful look. Her face was made up carefully and dramatically, with very heavy eye makeup and a third eye painted in the middle of her forehead. She wore a high head-dress, with fabric draped down over her body. The quasi-mystical get up reminded me a lot of some of the outfits in Alejandro Jodorowsky’s ‘The Holy Mountain’ (like this, but um, not like this), and this sense of absurd but powerful ritual permeated much of what she did. She began to hector us on the state of the nation, and of the woes of those who would stand against her. If Natalie Sharp wasn’t so damn innately authoritative this might come across as a bit silly, but she totally sells it. It’s a rare talent that she can so quickly command the rapt attention of a room. Next to me someone starts fiddling with his phone as she’s talking, and I for a moment imagine I see her eyes flash at him in fury, like she's about to decapitate him.
After her speech we hear two songs, 'Happy is the Country' and a cover of ‘War Pigs’ by Black Sabbath. This exposes a minor problem with the arrangement. One of the best things about seeing Gaggle is the effect of 21 women all singing angrily and passionately at you. When they’re cut down to seven, the effect is necessarily diminished. This doesn’t mean that the portion of Gaggle we’re seeing isn’t giving their all, but the music loses a bit of potency the fewer people there are singing it.
After this finishes the woman with the white flag returns and leads us to through a winding corridor to the next set piece. It’s a miniature recreation of the Occupy Camp outside St Pauls. Behind a few scattered tents is a backdrop of a bank surrounded by placards. I’ve seen a few things recently that have used imagery from the Occupy movement to varying levels of success. Some productions merely appropriate the aesthetics of the movement without taking the political aims into serious consideration, which always manages to annoy me. I’m happy to say that Gaggle don't do this. Every bit of iconography they use feels earned and authentic.
As we stand watching the tents, members of Gaggle unzip them and crawl out. They sing 'Money', and a projection behind them shows protests around the world. It’s graphic, powerful footage ranging from the uplifting (Pussy Riot performing their punk prayer in the Cathedral of Christ the Savior, and what looks like footage taken at a Slutwalk), to the disturbing (women getting beaten up by riot police, and in one particular brutal clip, a woman’s chest being repeatedly stamped on as she’s held down on the ground). It's a good reminder that what we are watching is essentially pantomime, a portrait of an ideal world without consequences like violent police beatings and being pepper-sprayed or tear-gassed.
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| The 'Block the Banks room, photo courtesy Zoran Vesilinovic |
Throughout this performance the tents are illuminated from inside by stage lights, and the performers hold individual electric candles in their hands. This feels more choreographed than the other Gaggle performances I've seen: it's overtly theatrical rather than a musical performance.
After this,we move onwards into a red-lit area with a big bed in it. There was some kind of dance going on between two actors here, with members of Gaggle singing behind them and a harpist, but this room was a bit smaller and filled up fast. I ended standing near the back and I couldn’t really see what was going on. It’s a pity, because what I could glimpse seemed pretty interesting. I tried my best to stand on tip toes and peer between people but although I could hear everything well enough (and they were singing 'Gaslight', one of my favourite songs from the album) it was a bit frustrating. Oh well.
This was the final small room to see, and with a ‘party’ song playing we were encouraged to dance back to the main area. Gaggle reformed into one group on the main stage, and launched into what felt like more of a traditional set for them. I was a bit disappointed that they repeated many of the songs they'd played earlier in the night. It’s not like Gaggle don’t have enough songs to fill out a setlist, one of my favourites is ‘Bang on the Drum’ which was used in the opening ceremony of the Paralympics, and I don’t think they played it once! Nor did they play their stunning and haunting cover of ‘Waterfall’ by the Stone Roses.
It always seems a little nitpicky to criticise Gaggle too much, because while they were playing music we’d heard once already that night they were knocking it out of the park. Gaggle leader Deborah Coughlin stands at the front conducting them like she’s landing a plane. She’s got a fury to her movements that’s a bit scary, but I suppose to get a machine like Gaggle working smoothly you’ve really got to put your back into it. But I was a little disappointed at the end that we didn’t get a big finale; the members of Gaggle trooped off stage one by one to rapturous applause, but there was no glitter cannon as there was at the Village Underground gig. Still, as they finished I was feeling perky and swept up in the moment along with everyone else there.
This night was an ambitious (and obviously expensive) undertaking. Just in technical terms there were essentially four stages to run, as well as audio/video projections and backing music. On top of this you’ve got to move three large audience groups around the building without them bumping into each other, not to mention making sure the 21 members of the band itself are in the right place at the right time. It’s giving me a logistical headache just thinking about it. But as far as I could see everything went off without a hitch, whoever was in charge of fitting all this together should be very pleased with themselves.
I more than think it achieved its artist targets though. Gaggle fit perfectly into a retelling of Lysistrata, and they added new relevance and immediacy to a millennia old play. I though it was interesting that the revolutionary anti-establishment actions we saw acted out are entirely pacifist in nature. Gaggle don't seem reactive and pacifistic at all - at times it feels more like they're raring themselves up to charge the gates of parliament, flaming molotov cocktails in hand. But this slight philosophical mismatch works in their favour, their aggressive behaviour means that the peaceful nature of the protest we're seeing feels fiercer than it might in other hands.
It was easy to forget last night that that 'Lysistrata' isn’t intended to be a feminist text, and can be argued presents female resistance tactics as intrinsically passive and is a bit sexually regressive. On some level the denial of sex as a punishment to their husbands overlooks the fact that their wives are denying themselves of sex as well. The fact that only the men feel the negative consequences of enforced chastity can be interpreted as supportive of the Victorian notion that for women, sex is something to be endured rather than enjoyed.
Even when their actions are obstructive and pacifistic rather than proactively revolutionary, Gaggle cannot help but seem radical and dynamic. In a ‘regular’ gig they radiate a dangerous power on stage but here, enveloped in an environment of their own design and surrounded by their own iconography they seem almost omniscient. In some way Gaggle’s individuality feels a little ironic; they define themselves as a separate entity in their dress and makeup, but then surrender their individuality to the Gaggle gestalt. What this did last night was allow them to seem everywhere and nowhere at once. In each of the rooms it doesn’t matter which members of Gaggle we’re seeing at any one time, or who is singing which part of each song, we have to consider them as a single entity, a legion; “My name is Gaggle and we are many”. Here, drenched in their imagery and surrounded by their propaganda we can begin to feel the same thing happening to us in the audience.
So a very enjoyable night out. It's a shame that this is a one-off show, as I think with a bit of word of mouth they could easily fill a space for a week. Roll on the next Gaggle event!
Photographs of the gig courtesy of Zoran Veselinovic (www.photozoran.com)
Sunday, June 24, 2012
Sunday, June 24, 2012
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| (promo picture for the play, the rest of the pictures on this page are news photos from Syria) |
I had only read a very vague description of what was to come, but I'd gathered that it was an interactive theatre experience that would try and show me a little of what life is like in contemporary Damascus as the Assad regime cracks down on the populace with the might of the Syrian Armed Forces while the Free Syrian Army retaliates. I was a little concerned that this would be a kind of vicarious warzone tourism for Westerners. I didn't want something that was just going to shake me up with a series of loud bangs and flashes to give me some sensory overload, a kind of a theme park, rollercoaster view of the conflict. I needn't have worried, as while this did leave me in a kind of wired, adrenaline overload, it did it while presenting a frighteningly plausible simulation of an experience in an Assad regime detention centre.
The premise is that myself and seven other participants are Western tourists that have come to Damascus to sightsee. As we arrive at Shoreditch Town Hall we're led into a hotel lobby. There's posters advertising the sights of the city, and small cups of tea to drink. A very pleasant receptionist takes our details and as people fill into the room she tells us about the sights we'll be seeing in the city, how we'll have to take off our shoes in order to enter the Umayyad Mosque and to be careful at the market and so on. Eventually our friendly bus driver arrives, and we follow him through the building as he teaches us a few basic Arabic phrases. As he jokes with us we are led down some stairs, and then out of the corner of our eyes we see a man with an AK47 assault rifle by the stairs.
Before we have time to process what's going on everyone starts screaming in Arabic, and we're shoved against the wall with our hands above our heads over our heads. All around us men are shouting orders in Arabic, and one by one we have black bags placed over our heads, blocking out all light. It's astonishing how terrifying and disconcerting this is. Even with the mental safety net of knowing I'm in Shoreditch at a theatrical performance, I still find my legs and hands shaking involuntarily. We're roughly led outside and into a van, where our hands are buckled down between our legs and people beat the outside of the menacingly. We're driven around while Syrian music is blared at us, and the van rocks over rough terrain. It's difficult to tell where we are going, and the van drives for a sufficiently long time as to completely disorientate us. It stops, and still blind and hooded we're marched, hands on each other's shoulders into a room where the hoods are pulled off.
We seem to be in some Syrian Army commander's office. He sits behind a desk as we line up in front of him, an ominous picture of Assad bearing down from the wall behind him (his picture is omnipresent throughout the performance). He checks our names against a list, and informs us that one our group is a journalist and has 'illegally' sent a report out of the country. He's going to find out which one. He then threateningly lectures us about Western intervention in the Middle East, repeating a popular saying; "before there was one Saddam Hussein, now there are millions of Saddam Husseins'. He quizzes us as to whether our system of government is much better than his. It's valid political commentary, even though it's being used to justify the murderous Assad regime in Syria. It's not like we can debate this guy though, we've been too shocked into submission to argue. When he pointed at me and asked my name, I was surprised by how shaky and nervous my response was. Again, even though I 'knew' it wasn't real, apparently my body didn't.
Following this lecture we're marched down a corridor and made to stand arms in the air and heads up. Also lying in the corridor is a beaten and bloody man under a sheet. He desperately asks us to contact his mother and let her know that he's here. I find myself somewhat paranoid and avoid talking to him, how do I know he's not some plant put here to get information out of me? Very quickly you slip into a paranoid and somewhat placid state - I found myself having Stockholm Syndrome-like thoughts of pleasing the people that were ordering me around. You find yourself doing what they say, marching, running, standing against the wall, without thinking.
We're next led into a darkened room where the door is shut. A shambling, mumbling presence creeps up behind us and whispers in our ear. It's another prisoner, who tells us we've been here for 20 years. He asks where we're from, and when we respond Britain, he says we're 20 years too late. This moment in the darkened cell with the somewhat deranged prisoner is sort of a moment of downtime for us. He leads us around his cell and tells us about his life and political opinions, talking to a sock puppet which represents Assad. The slight slackening of the psychological pressure on us makes this feel a little more expository than what we've seen so far. There is a rattling at the door as the chains shake, and we scuttle instinctively back to our submissive position against the wall in order to avoid being singled out for abuse.
We're then lead down a corridor to another prison cell, this one much smaller, but better lit. We're in the cell with two women, who have been renamed Muhammed and Ahmed, so the other prisoners don't realise they're being held captive with women. They tell us about their lives, one has been arrested for writing an English language blog, and the other has a husband that refused to fire against civilians. They explain how they pass the time by playing games with each other and arguing. The subject of armed resistance vs peaceful demonstration is debated, with the girls taking opposite positions. I'm drawn into the debate, and say that peaceful demonstration can only go so far, and that violent resistance is justified when the state uses indiscriminate lethal force against the populace. She responds by saying that she fears a civil war will erupt, and I point out that the situation in Syria is already a civil war. A lot of people are going to die no matter when happens, and they may as well be the authoritarian child-murderers that are the muscle behind Assad. I consider myself to have a very cursory understanding of the current situation in Syria, so I'm not exactly on comfortable ground debating this. Before too long though, the guards are back, and we're marched down the corridor into the 'torture' room.
The room features a dentist's chair, and variety of sinister looking tools sit on racks behind it. Pools of blood lie on the floor around it, as does an ominously sparking car battery. One person is singled out to be tortured, and as 'luck' would have it, it's me. I'm strapped to the dentist's chair, and everyone else is led out. Now it's just me and the torturer, who barks questions at me and accuses me of being a Jew. He shines a bright light in my eyes, and blows long plumes of cigarettes smoke into the room. Then he gets called away for a moment, and I'm left on my own in the room. I decide "to hell with this", and escape. I slip my hands free of the restraints and peek around the door to see if anyone's watching in the corridor. No-one is. I quickly work out a plan. There are two doors opposite the interrogation room, but I don't know what's behind them, and worry that they might lead to dead ends. In the end I settle for squeezing myself into the space behind the door to the torture room, and plan to close the door on the interrogator and run off towards the exit.
As I'm hiding behind the door, heart pumping and trying to be as quiet as possible I reflect on whether I'm supposed to be trying to escape or not? I mean, I wasn't restrained particularly effectively, is this what they want me to be doing? Is this a psychological test of my submissiveness - to see whether I will do what they tell me to, even though a way out is right in front of me? It strikes me that this 'escape' attempt isn't really telling me much about the current situation in Syria, it's more allowing me to act out a Hollywood style prison break and fuel some heroic masturbatory fantasy of mine. If I was really being held in a torture room by the Syrian Army, would I really try and escape? This is after all, a piece of theatre, and I know there are going to be no real consequences to my escape. Even so, my heart is thumping like a drum, and I'm holding my breath as I hear the guard coming back down the corridor to my hiding spot. As he turns the corner into the cell I try and close the door on him and run away. He chases me, and quickly I find myself cornered in a dead end and surrender. A hood is placed over my head again, and once more I'm lead down a corridor while being prodded with clubs. I am asked if I 'love Assad', and still flush with heroic feelings I 'bravely' respond 'No!' repeatedly. Things go quiet, and after a while I take my hood off and look around.
I'm back surrounded by the rest of the group, who mostly still have their hoods on. The smiling face of the theatre assistant greets me, it's over, it felt like a lot longer than 66 minutes.. Everyone seems shaken up by their experience. I'm still jittery, hyped up on adrenaline with my hands and legs shaking a little. Stepping out into the Shoreditch nightlife feels incredibly bizarre after this, and strange paranoid and excitable thoughts fill my head for hours afterwards.
This is a somewhat difficult piece of theatre to analyse. It really is intense and terrifying, but ultimately it is also entertaining. The stated aim is to raise awareness of what is happening in Assad's prisons and detention centres, but even though this feels realistic, deep down I know what is actually happening must be infinitely worse and infinitely more psychologically destructive. It succeeded in making me think that I could empathise with the experiences of those interrogated, but this must necessarily be an illusion. How could I look someone in the eye who'd actually been through this sort of treatment and tell them that I'd paid £15 and gone to the centre of trendy London to put myself through a simulation of what they'd been forced through? This was after all, my choice.
But on the other hand the programme does assure us that the events we've been through are based on testimony from former political detainees, and admits that they can only "modestly portray only a small fraction of the dreadfulness and absurdity of what political detainment in Syria really is under the Assad regime." Putting audiences through this simulation of very real events to raise awareness about what is going on is a noble aim, the more people outraged at the way the Assad regime is treating its citizenry the better. But, it seems other than awareness that there is almost nothing that we, the audience members can do about this incredibly complicated situation. It's a worrying feeling of impotence, one which Adam Curtis has summarised as "Oh Dearism".
It is precisely this kind of impotent feeling that makes this piece of theatre somewhat problematic for me. Is it worth transforming people's very real traumatic experiences of psychological torture into theatre to inform Western audiences? It feels a little exploitative for me to get an adrenaline fix by dipping my toe into the horrors of contemporary Syria. Especially since, at times I felt like I was acting out my personal revolutionary fantasies about resisting torture by an authoritarian regime and attempting escape. While it was exciting at the time, in retrospect it feels somewhat like using what is horrifying reality for people right now to stroke my own ego.
As a piece of theatre it is stunningly effective, convincing and something that'll stay with me for a very long time. It's a triumph of disturbingly convincing set design and acting so realistically threatening that you feel a genuine sense of malevolence from the actors playing the soldiers, and very real desperation from the prisoners. Even so, despite all this acting skill and expert staging my reaction to the situation in Syria is still much along the lines of "Oh dear, this is awful", rather than being given any kind of constructive framework to be able to effect any kind of change in Syria. I've been made aware of what is going on, but is that enough?
As a piece of theatre it is stunningly effective, convincing and something that'll stay with me for a very long time. It's a triumph of disturbingly convincing set design and acting so realistically threatening that you feel a genuine sense of malevolence from the actors playing the soldiers, and very real desperation from the prisoners. Even so, despite all this acting skill and expert staging my reaction to the situation in Syria is still much along the lines of "Oh dear, this is awful", rather than being given any kind of constructive framework to be able to effect any kind of change in Syria. I've been made aware of what is going on, but is that enough?
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