CREW_Projects
A live art performance, combining theatre with immersive adventures
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Immercity is a live art project. A combination of a theatre performance, a visual experience and an immersive adventure.
Central in the performance are key contemporary issues raised by recent neurological research on consciousness, issues that are directly linked to CREW's years of exploration of immersive technologies.
Who are we? What is the‘self'? How do we perceive this‘self'? Is our body to be trusted as an interface between the reality and our self? How can we‘construct'our state-of-consciousness? How malleable is the individual? Where does manipulation start?
Director Eric Joris and writer Peter Verhelst are greatly inspired by the discourse of neuro-philosopher Thomas Metzinger (D) and draw a parallel between current explorations of our brain and the dramatic quest of explorer R.F.Scott and his race to the south-pole at the beginning of the 20thcentury. Combining state-of-the art technology in omni-directional environments, contemporary theatrical set-ups and visual effects, they‘immerse'the audience into a mesmerizing narrative.
The public of Immercity consists of a group of‘normal visitors' (around 75) and 11‘immersive visitors'.
Co-production: Vooruit, Ghent (B) , EDM, Hasselt (B) , La Chartreuse, Villeneuve-les-Avignon (Fr) , Buda, Kortrijk (B).
Premiere: La Chartreuse in Villeneuve-les-Avignon, July 2011.
Tour: Budapest (H) , Graz (AU) , Zagreb (HR) , Kortrijk (B) , Rotterdam (Nl) , Prato (It) , Ghent (B) , Brussels (B).
With the support of the European Commission's Culture 2007 Programme
Is this the story of a daydreamer and if so, are his daydreams possibly dangerous for you?
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Is this CREW's newest creation? Or is it yours?
Is this the story of a daydreamer and if so, are his daydreams possibly dangerous for you?
Step into Line-Up and find out.
Line-Up is a follow up of EUX , a one to one performance using the newest technology in omni-directional video and a mind-blowing physical experience, recently presented to enthusiastic audiences in Villeneuve-les-Avignon, Kortrijk, Zurich, Brussels, Amsterdam, Ljubljana and Ghent.
Line-Up takes you yet another step further into the parallel world. Sound and images join in with a mesmerizing story and guide you on a trip that turns reality inside out.
headswap configuration 2 to 2
Taking a walk into each other's head...
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theatre performance
"Who sees and who is blind? To whom belongs reality?..."
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The mythological figure of Oedipus symbolizes modern man and his tragic fate. Oedipus is blind when he can see and he only starts to see when he becomes blind. His personal tragedy is that he never succeeds in obtaining a central perspective on the world.
The immersive experience is integrated within the classical theatre set-up where one person of the audience is selected to be the immersant.
Submerged in a virtual world he undergoes his very own performance while the audience watches from the other side, seeing a different show.
mobile immersive performance for 1 immersant
"U (you) only exists in your head, U (you) do not know who you are living..."
‘U Razende stilstand’ is een immersieve ervaring voor één persoon tegelijkertijd. Het is de allereerste voorstelling waarin elke toeschouwer individueel als protagonist effectief rondloopt en op zoek gaat in eentransitionele ruimte. Dit is een ruimte tussen de echte en de virtuele ruimte, in een tijd tussen nu en vroeger, tussen echt beeld en opgenomen beeld. Het verhaal van Saskia De Coster thematiseert regressie en dementie waardoor deimmersanthet gevoel krijgt zichzelf te verliezen en bijna lichamelijk terug te vinden.
interactieve installatie
Eric Joris created his own archaic 3D version based on the QTVR format. In 1996 computers were still too slow to bring these drawings full screen. Present technology allows to incorporate the drawing in an interactive installation that is shown at the Artefact festival in Stuk in Leuven.
anatomic theatre,
"Theater muteert tot een levende prothese... Paul Antipoff IS Philoctetes."
Once again, the paralyzed actor Paul Antipoff blends in naturally with his highly technological environment. The spectators are sitting or standing in a kind of cage from where they look down on Antipoff's body. When mini-robots attack the paralyzed body, the performance reminds of a public dissection in an anatomical theatre. Philoctetes is the Greek warrior who is abandoned by Odysseus on the barren island of Lemnos because he has a foul-smelling leg wound that won't heal. Thanks to his magic bow, Philoctetes manages to survive for nine years. But then Odysseus returns to deprive him of the bow...
Audience and actor are located in a 8x7x4m computer cave which is completely controlled by the paralyzed actor Paul Antipoff. He speaks, draws,'acts'through a computer interface which he can manipulate by his tongue, his chin and a laser attached on his forehead. A whole network of multimedia is connected to his body as a literal prosthesis. He becomes the modern Icarus who is locked up in the labyrinth of his own body. The audience is surrounded by the turbulent mind of Icarus who prepares his escape by means of electronic wings. Antipoff/Icarus embodies the human desire to surpass our physical limitations.
A first preview (1999) of Bêta_Icarus was shown during De Nachten in deSingel: a combination of live body scans, music by Peter Swinnen and the SuckmyP-texts by Peter Verhelst. A second'test flight'followed, in which drama students from the Ghent Conservatory performed texts by Verhelst. Four students took part in the third preview as well (June 2000). They functioned as a kind of Greek choir and combined the mythological with a contemporary Icarus. In the fourth and last part -which concentrated on the technical aspects- the software that had been developed for Icarus was tested (October 2000). Later the results of these sessions were brought together in the final Icarus performance.
The engine of Duke Nukem has been dismantled and manipulated so it could be used for other purposes such as a musical compositor tool, a stage directing tool, etc. This resulted into CREWs first interactive computercave. The visitor can navigate through this cave as through a virtual exposition where art projects from different disciplines are brought together.