artistic concept

Distópia Visuál come out from the desire to express personal experiences in the form of performance. Distópia Visuál investigate the effect on personal perception of a physical transformation. A surgery of both eyes leads toward a new way to look at reality to the subject. The choreography is a dialogue between two bodies and interactive space of light tubes. The bodies and the stage in which walk the public, change with light and darkness, motions and reflections, expressing the process suffered by the dancers.

general principle

A duo where two ways to see physical changes and their influence on practical life is staged. 

We take the risk of changing things in our daily lives and out of our comfort zones?

Sight is the privileged sense in contemporary society. Everything is primarily known through vision. And it is through accumulation of images that we learn to behave socially, codify rules and acquire social values. In a society dominated by media we construct our own image of the world, in which the eye is the barycenter.

Does a modification of visual perception leads towards a new reality?

And what about the subject?

Thanks to an immersive environment public can live together with performers this emotional process.

 description

Distópia Visuál is a performance combining contemporary dance and technology. This works focus on the sense of sight relating the movement with the illusion produced by the shadows and the mirror in the floor. Through white and black plastic tubes, leds, silver reflective plastic, conduit electrical, circuits, supporting materials, we have build an interactive environment made of light, video and audio. The goal is experimenting the possibility to falsify regular visual perceptions of the public who walk inside freely during the performance by combining very bright white columns in conjunction with black ones, close one to another. Sensors measures the amount of movement – acceleration, rotation, proximity – of dancers: this data is related real time with light patterns and audio composition generating an interactive mediascape mixed with recorded music. Suddenly a video appears in the ceil: a surgery of both eyes, personal experience of the authors – Luca Carrubba and Gina Castilla – that gives back the key concept of the performance. A duo, man and woman, are the characters who pass through this transformation and who share their tension, obsession and happiness  with the public.

Duration: 25-35 minutes

 choreography investigation

 It is a meeting between two subjects, an unconscious spectator and a performative subject whom  try to engage a reaction to spectator condition. The set of movements are an invitation to  spectators toward participation.

A shock to the torpor of spectator that push him to became a participant eye of the reality surrounds him. As for the surgery which he have been spectator, this attendance will bring him to a permanent change of his daily life condition.

The two dancers have been the director and creator of the body of the other. Waves, fragmentation awareness regarding body spaces, the idea and intentions need to become a physical change. In this case an eye operation for myopia and astigmatism. How to perform about 20 years of living with the use of glasses?.

The physical work suggested from the surgery has take the form of the anesthetic effect: slow manipulation and movement decomposition. With the coming of new world (of lights) new motion coordination comes as well. Action and reaction with/against the public engaging their participation. Choreography have been designed by Alexander Carrillo and Gina Castilla

 scenography

 The scenography of Distópia Visuál is an interactive lighting space that aim to falsify the visual perceptions of the people inside it. The space is composed by a virtual cube of lights, like a column forest with an infinitive mirror ground floor. The effect is awesome. Inspired by the work of Iranian artist Hossein Valameneshwe have built – under the technical guidance of Francesca Mereu – the original design of cylinder floating tubes connected with the movements. The lights follow and determine the spirit of the narrative: the externalize the transformation process of the performers, the new way to look at the world, the perception of it before and after the surgery. 

video

During the performance the roof will be suddenly transformed in a projection screen and a surgery of both eyes will be showed. A real eye surgery video – experienced by the authors – that has worked as inspiration material of our artistic scenic research. Eight minutes long of uncomfortable images that perform a physical  transformation on the dancers and impose a new way to look at the world. 

music

The music – written by German composer Tim Kienecker and Italian musician Giuseppe Montagna –is a mixed sound scape of real time composition and recorded media. Through the use of sensors dancers build direct relation with the environments underlining the personal inner world of emotion. The recorded media helps to create rhythm and contribute to a collective atmosphere where the public can be part of it. The climax of the performance is the surgery in which the strongness of the images is opposed to to a techno party music creating a surrealistic momentum.

production

Distopia Visuál is a work in progress. It has been produced by Estereotips and co-produced by L’Escruct Theater Sabadell (Spain). 

 MIRA Lab is an international event for artists, developers, curators, agencies and public working with creative technology for performances, shows and visual arts in real time.

MIRA Lab empowers people in the visual arts field through the mutual exchange of skills and experiences. MIRA Lab is defined to be an international event that promotes p2p, puts theemphasis on the process, and promotes the creativity through innovative activities

During the 2013’s edition of the festival Estereotips has been invited to give a public talk about our artistic practice and the centrality of coding as new literacy.

Below you can find a very simple slide with the main concept expressed during the talk.

About:

Audiogames web site project

More infos on the press (spanish):

– PlayLab en Telediario 2º edición TVE1 (minuto 20)

– PlayLab en Público

TuTagghiuStuPalluni, Sicilian for “I’ll cut the ball”, is an interactive installation made ​​during the workshop on architecture and urban design «Woz 2008» in Palermo. Made with some elementary school children of two city’s districts (Albergheria and Ballarò), the installation consists of a soccer game with a single door; whenever the ball hits the wall, on which is projected a door, a media content comes alive among those chosen, manufactured and proposed by the children. The workshop in preparation of the contents that precedes the game is the most creative and interesting moment and also a time during which they discuss some key issues for us as the public spaces, the game and the identity and finally, the reappropriation of spaces.

In April 2009 the installation was revived at the Centro Cultural IBDA Center in  Dheisheh refugee camp  (Bethlehem, Palestine), during the campaign Sport sotto l’assedio (Sport under the siege).

Read the review by Create Digital Motion and by Australian vj VdmoSkati