Hello and apologies for our late arrival on the blog. I (Mallory Catlett) will make a brief entry here about the project (OH WHAT WAR) and then I will leave it to Z (Zbigniew Bzymek) to inform you on the details. I'm the director (Mallory) and he (Zbigniew) is the video artist.
OH WHAT WAR is music/theater/video mash-up that has been in development at HERE Arts Center. The final production will open Sept '08. Our DPI residency will be used to revamp the video content, specifically to create a system that can tie in all the technology in the show--video games, analog tape dj, live feed camera work, large projections, small projections, etc--in a way that serves the actions of the characters and show.
Briefly OH WHAT WAR takes place/is inspired by WW1. Specifically, there was myth about a band of deserters who lived under No-Man's-Land. So the piece is situated underground and the characters are these deserters. Their space is a command center of sorts from which they attempt to monitor the war around them.
So that's the nutshell. I will leave it to Z to address the more technical stuff. I will however give you a quote from our application that dips into it, in the event that he cant reply right away.
" . . . DPI will allow me to realize the environment of the play as a video game space, where I can address sound sensitivity and a range of visual interference modes. With respect to Lucas’ live sound mixing, the reactivity cannot be simply an ornamental effect, but rather adding a level of interaction that can encroach upon the space and psychology of the characters. To do this I would explore delay patterns for monitor reception that would mimic or respond to text loops. A loud volume or a certain pattern could trigger a certain video mode. It could be a mode of interference that uses live television streaming as a chaotic out-of-time input. I would like to overlay and ‘collage-in’ the bottom portion of the battlefield horizon images compositing in live TV. This is the kind of interference that would disorient the characters, and disrupt the player.
The technical issues that I will focus on will be the following: How to physically patch the system in such a way to have maximum alterable, autonomous source-outputs, while at other times sending the same source to all- how can I switch quickly? How can we slow down the signal to create an echo-reception effect to match Lucas's sound effects? What other ways could I support the sound distortion and interference without merely visually monkeying with Lucas's effects? How much of this can I create with the physical patch? In an effort to engage with the analog tape, how can I digitally instigate analog effects/situations and what kind of digital support will I need? Can I do what I want with Isadora, a program I know well, or is this an opportunity to work with other software alternatives?
Utilizing the video game context allows me to explicitly address a real inspiration for my work in the theater. Particularly I’ve been interested for years in video game psychology, player motivation, graphic representations of life energy, such as a life meter, and the audio-visual reward system. Video games, especially controversial or banned ones (some of which I have played) function on the premise of transferability--the players ability to buy lives--coins into lives. Others go much farther to instigate mayhem. All act as simulators, simplified versions of the war economy that the war machine itself fights to obscure. With this approach I am striving to create a system, that the actors/characters can partially operate on stage without fully understanding its total capability. This is the unique relationship to technology we are after, the all controlling and out one’s control dichotomy."
More later.
Mallory