Out of Character - Fringe Festival

Finding the Cat's Eye Theatre, hidden in the basement of the Wymilwood building on Charles St. was an adventure. As we walked down the small path with an emerald leafy canopy above, I began to feel a stirring of excitement. I had been to a reading of a play called 'Shadow Court' awhile back which was written and directed by the same team as was presenting 'Out of Character' and I was blown away. So I knew we were in for a really fantastic experience.

When we walked into the theatre the seating was unusual. There were three rows of seats on each side, facing each other with about ten feet in between and what looked like stages on both sides. We found seats front and centre, hoping for an optimal view of all the action. The characters were roaming around the theatre, chatting with each other in that over dramatic way that both actors and LARPers tend to exhibit and they would even come around to talk to the audience. They looked lovely and restless, it gave the air a bit of a shine to see them so energetic and clearly ready for the show.

Out of Character is first and foremost story of an affair, a story of love and lust. And in the grand tradition of painful love, it is also a tragedy. It is also, undeniably brilliant. Gamers make excellent theatre. I believe one of the reasons for this is that they are used to multi-layered stories. LARPs (Live Action Role Playing Games - for all you non-nerds out there) are complex productions with multiple storylines, rich histories with subtle (and overt) relationships and politics all playing out simultaneously. So when a bunch of gamers make a play about games, love, betrayal and passion, it is complex, rich and detailed. For the sake of simplicity I will break this down into praise for three different categories. Writing, Directing, Acting/Casting.

Writing

Out of Character was written by Stephen Near. Awhile back when I saw his play 'Shadow Court', I was stunned and wholly impressed. 'Out of Character' had the exact same effect. As I was walking away from the theatre last night I was pondering the ways in which I could describe the writing to best do it justice. I was having trouble finding the words to capture exactly what it is that made it brilliant. If you can imagine words dancing together in a poetic harmony, then that might begin to capture it. The way Stephen creates the distinction between 'in character' and 'out of character' is wonderful and the way the storylines are woven together with narration, real time and past tense is spectacular. There are certain artists that seem to embody all of art in their particular chosen form and Stephen is one of them. It feels like a mix of music, poetry, dance and theatre and to express all of that simply through the written (and spoken) word is really a gift.

Directing

Out of Character was directed by Ericka Skirpan, a talented woman with a clearly incredible sense of both space and relationships. The stage was created in a unique way that provided lots of space for the characters to move and run simultaneous scenes brilliantly. The interplay between the characters was brought vividly to life by each movement and it was an easy pleasure to keep up with their vibrant use of the space, the stages and their relationships with each other. You can tell that Ericka really gets the way things should play out and was clearly the perfect person to help shape these characters and bring them to exuberant life.

Acting/Casting

Out of Character featured: Adrianna Prosser and Leeman Kessler, with Kat Leonard, Nick May, Jessica Moss, Phil Rickaby, Kevin Robinson, and Scott Sykes. The casting was perfect. Each character was so unique with their own sense of space, history and their own attachments and each actor fit their role to a T. Each role was played brilliantly, with a smooth interplay and words flowing to create the poetic dance. Expressions were perfectly held, transitions from 'In Character' to 'Out of Character' flowed effortlessly (and often hilariously). Each beat of their rhythm was caught and each moment was used to the fullest. From the moment we walked in the door to the final bow they were each dedicated to a fully entertaining experience. Bravo.

It is rare to find a show that works on so many levels. Although it seems to be advertised as a LARP Play, don't let that dissuade you, it is a love story, expertly told and although there are aspects of gaming which lend the story it's texture, comedy and depth, it is not outside of the realm of enjoyment for non-gamers. It made me laugh, it made me think, it made me question the morality of the characters and ponder their positions, I disagreed, I agreed and most of all, I enjoyed. Congratulations to all, brilliant show.

Out of Character is a Fringe show that runs nightly from Wednesday-Sunday July 1st to July 12th (dark on Tuesday, July 7th) at 8 pm in The Cats Eye Theatre. 150 Charles Street West (basement of the Wymilwood building just east of Avenue and Charles). Go see it. You will not regret it.

In Praise of Bryan Fuller

Last night I watched the Dead Like Me movie. It is a continuation of a brilliant series that had a life that was entirely too short. The series was created by Bryan Fuller, the creative genius who is also responsible for the co-creation of a marvelous series called Wonderfalls and, more recently, he co-executive produced and wrote for the first season of Heroes and created another gem of a series called Pushing Daisies.

Bryan Fuller's style is absolutely unique and quite rare to find in the realm of television. His work is whimsical and leans heavily towards magical realism. He manages to be comedic, dark, mystical and light all at the same time while dealing with major philosophical issues in a digestible and delightful way. There are not to many people out there who can claim storytelling skills like that. He brings art to everything he does and delves into the connectedness of the universe in a way I have not seen from any other commercial television series creator.

Unfortunately, all of the magic, enlightened storytelling and overall brilliance does not seem to bode well with audiences. Although each series (minus Heroes which has taken on a life of it's own) has a solid base of dedicated fans, they were all short lived. Wonderfalls barely lasted one season, Dead Like Me & Pushing Daisies had two seasons each, with Fuller leaving Dead Like Me in after the first season because of MGM doing a hack job of the storyline. I can only imagine the difficulty an artist like Bryan Fuller would have with a big, bad studio breathing down his neck.

It breaks my heart (and, I am sure, the hearts of dedicated fans the world over) to see these amazing characters and fantastic stories fall into obscurity, overshadowed by simple dramas, mindless family comedies and yet another Law & Order knock off. But at the same time this lack of attention makes them all that much more rare to find and they are indeed, discoveries to be cherished.

I would be interested to see Bryan Fuller try his hand at creating a webseries or something of that ilk. Something low cost, but free from the controlling powers that be. Perhaps if he branched into the land of independent production - like Joss Whedon with Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along Blog, he might have more success with stories and characters that linger longer then the fleeting lives of those that have come before. Or perhaps, in the end, the short life of Dead Like Me is poetically fitting and should be seen as a chance for a new beginning, not a real end after all.

"We all die, some of us sooner than later, for me, it's going to be much sooner but that's only the beginning of my story.." - George Lass, Dead Like Me

Imaginary Friend

Awhile back I was befriended by someone called Martin Aggett. He is a photographer and a member of the ARG community. He is also, as I was informed two nights ago, completely fake. Martin is a character created for an upcoming ARG to be published by Remix Fiction. He has created an impressive amount of fake content including a Twitter and Facebook account, e-mail address and Unfiction Forum posts. He even went so far as to contribute to an iPhone photography website (letting the owner of the site know that he was fake) and, most interestingly, created an article for ARGN the online Alternate Reality Game Network. The folks at ARGN were not too pleased and published this in response.

I have been 'friends' for awhile now with Martin. It has been a casual friendship and mostly developed over Yahoo Chat mostly at his insistence. In terms of personality I had a bit of trouble getting into anything deeper with him then mild chatter about games and the issues that I had been going through with the ARG community awhile back regarding game hijacking (forum gets issue laden HERE) and in-character posts on the Unfiction forums. Despite the lack of depth Martin seemed like a pretty regular guy, pretty nice and mildly interesting due to his apparent interest in games. He seemed normal, until he sent me this:



I was surprised to find that I had a genuine emotional reaction to the fact that the person that I had been talking to for the last six months or so was fake. As the relationship was so casual there was not much to be emotional about, but I felt...something. I am not sure the best way to describe how I felt. Perhaps the best way to put it would be shock. I laughed and congratulated him for providing me with a genuine emotional response, I felt like with my reaction I had become a part of a piece of art, although the question then becomes: is it art if it is unintentional?

Steve (the name of the person who created the character) had created Martin and was attempting to build him up until the launch of his game. He says he is tired of the lack of character development in most ARG's and wanted to create a compelling character that people would really care about. It worked. Many of the people Martin had built relationships with had strong and genuine responses, in most cases it was something akin to mourning. There were stages of disbelief, sadness, anger and finally acceptance. Many people felt betrayed and even foolish. But Martin (or I guess I should say Steve) claims he never intended for this to happen. He only meant to get the character started and build a history, but never intended to engage with people in the way that he came to do. He started experimenting with communications and ended up connecting with people, in character, in quite real and meaningful ways. It got to a point where Steve was actually starting to consider attending ARGfest as Martin and this, he tells me, was the turning point.

"Creating real life, face to face connections with people as a character...that would be the point of no turning back, you know?" Steve told me over Skype. He was feeling guilty and like he was betraying people's trust by building relationships with them with one large underlying issue, it was not really him in the relationship. Martin shared many of Steve's perspectives on things and was really only fictional to a point, but he was still an imaginary friend and that can tend to make people...uncomfortable. Martin...um..Steve...mentioned that it was an interesting statement on the way in which we develop relationships online. Despite how easy it is to develop online persona's and fake identities online, the majority of people still take it for granted that the people they meet online are real. We develop these online communications and relationships to a point where we believe we have a real connection which can instantly be dissolved by the unveiling of a lie. The more I think about it though, the more I realize this is not just a symptom of online relationships. Perhaps it is a little easier for someone to lie to you online then in real life, but lies seem to be a ubiquitous trait of humanity. We are not immune in any medium and this is a perfect case in point.

In terms of the game aspect, both Steve/Martin and I could agree on one major point. It is best to allow people to have choice within a game space. If you don't know you are interacting with a character it takes away peoples very important right to free will. People should have the choice to engage in an experience, it should not be forced upon them unwittingly. The suspension of disbelief within fictional environments is something humanity has shown a great capacity for so there is really no need for deceit.

I congratulate Steve/Martin for providing me with a very real, emotional experience and I also congratulate him for making what he considered to be a mistake, owning it and learning from the experience. Of course I have no real reason to trust anything that he says to me, but I will take him at his word for the moment, because I have nothing else to go on and really nothing to loose in doing so. Overall it was quite an interesting experience being friends with Martin Aggett and I am happy to remain so in order to see where it leads. Weirder things have happened and I simply chalk it up to my willing involvement in a genre of play where anything can happen and quite frequently anything goes.

NETWORK - Subtle Technologies Evening of Networked Performance

NETWORK
Subtle Technologies Performance Night
Curated by: Willy Le Maitre
Friday 12th, 2009 - 8pm
Innis Town Hall
$15 minimum donation (pay at the door)
Performance free with purchase of Full Festival Pass
www.subtletechnologies.com

"In this World 2.0, the distant and out of time are those not on the network. Those not connected by the myriad of standards, protocols, interfaces and soft spots are from World 1.0. Seemingly, with more degrees removed from our mutual separation, we are unified by a network that, paradoxically, joins us and separates us. There is a quality of transparency to World 2.0 that make a users criticism difficult to recognize online. What is placed on the Internet is usurped by it; the network is a medium that absorbs all expression as its own. As users of this world we know that dialogue is constant and criticism is part of a basic reflection. When seen from within the network, this can become invisible to us. The arena of performance has the potential to look at the network sideways, to provide a context to see a figure emerge from the dense field we’re enmeshed in." - Willy Le Maitre

Performances
• Performance demonstration of War Mail by Jeremy Bailey
• A networked performance by Second Front
• The Pauline Oliveros / Ione / Chris Chafe trio in networked performance
• Ukiyo - Moveable World by Johannes Birringer
• Mess By: Alan Sondheim

War Mail
By Jeremy Bailey

Summary

Funny Man Jeremy Bailey creates videos and performances that demonstrate satirical software programs of his own design. His work has been described by filmmaker magazine as “a one man revolution on the way we use video, computers and our bodies to create art”.

In-Depth

Funny Man Jeremy Bailey creates videos and performances that demonstrate satirical software programs of his own design. He received his MFA in Video Art from Syracuse University and an undergraduate degree in Visual Studies from the University of Toronto. He is co-founder of award winning artist collective 640 480. His work has been described by filmmaker magazine as “a one man revolution on the way we use video, computers and our bodies to create art”. Jeremy lives and works in Toronto, Canada. His work can be viewed, rented and acquired through Vtape in Toronto.

“WarMail is a sort of email/war/expression hybrid interface. The premise goes something like this…

In the future with intergalactic war occupying such immense space (and birthrates at record lows) it will be impossible to both administrate and defend our interests across solar systems while also having time to get together socially, this software is the probable solution to this inevitable social/production/military readiness crisis. The program allows a group or individual to type out an email by firing missiles at abstract rotating pyramid clusters hovering above a blue planet (apparently habitable). Each hit also registers a musical note which you can use to compose and playback music(culture is a valuable part of any civilization). Herein the group’s collective voice and choreography control the movements and actions of the spacecraft. The group’s actions are also tracked and aided by a red avatar named “skullBot” visible at center.” Jeremy Bailey.

Red, White and Blue Dawn
Second Front

Summary

Second Front creates theatres of the absurd that challenge notions of virtual embodiment, online performance and the formation of virtual narrative.

In-Depth

Second Front is the pioneering performance art group in the online avatar-based VR world, Second Life. Founded in 2006, Second Front quickly grew to its current 7 member troupe that includes Gazira Babeli (Italy), Yael Gilks (London), Bibbe Hansen (New York), Doug Jarvis (Victoria), Scott Kildall (San Francisco), Patrick Lichty (Chicago) and Liz Solo (St. Johns).

Taking their influences from numerous sources, including Dada, Fluxus, Futurist Syntesi, the Situationist International and contemporary performance artists like Laurie Anderson and Guillermo Gomez-Pena, Second Front creates theatres of the absurd that challenge notions of virtual embodiment, online performance and the formation of virtual narrative.

Created in 2006, they have already performed extensively, including in Vancouver, Chicago, New York, Paris and Brussels and has been featured in publications including ArtForum, Art in America, Eikon, Realtime Arts (Australia), The Avastar (published by Axel-Springer, Germany), Exibart (Italy) and Digital Art, Second Edition by Christiane Paul.

The Pauline Oliveros / Ione / Chris Chafe trio in Networked Performance

Summary

The Pauline Oliveros / Ione / Chris Chafe trio explores musical spaces often across physical spaces. Blending music and spoken word improvisation, the festival performance links stages in Toronto and Banff. The three have been developing artistic practice within the telematic medium collectively with a growing cohort of other musicians.

In-Depth

Pauline Oliveros is an internationally renowned composer and performer. Over her fifty-year career, she has profoundly influenced contemporary music through her innovative work with improvisation, electronic music, meditation, myth and ritual. She is founder and president of the Deep Listening Institute, Ltd., and Professor of Music at the Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in Troy, NY.

Ione is a critically acclaimed author, playwright, poet, educator, and performer-improviser. She is Director of the Ministry of Maåt, Inc., and Artistic Director of the Deep Listening Institute.

Chafe Chafe is iCore Visiting Professor at The Banff Centre, while on sabbatical leave from Stanford University. A composer / cellist / music researcher with an interest in computer music composition and interactive performance, he has been a long-term denizen of the Center for Computer Research in Music and Acoustics where he directs the center and teaches computer music courses. Two earlier year-long research periods were spent at IRCAM, Paris, and The Banff Center, composing and developing methods for computer sound synthesis. This year he is continuing the SoundWIRE experiments for musical collaboration over the Internet. A sound installation, “The End of Winter” is featured at the Pasadena Museum of California Art. His doctorate in music composition was completed at Stanford in 1983.

Ukiyo - Moveable World
Johannes Birringer

Summary

Birringer will present an excerpt from the choreographic installation UKYIO, a collaboration between performers in the UK and Tokyo.

UKIYO meanjs moveable worlds, and it takes a look back at the earlier communist revolutions, to dream of the next…

In-Depth

Conceived and directed by Johannes Birringer and Michèle Danjoux, the installation features choreography and live sound by Katsura Isobe, Helenna Ren, Yiorgos Bakalos, Anne Laure Misme, Caroline Wilkins, Mamen Rivera and Olu Taiwo; with fashion design concepts by Michèle Danjoux. Photography is created by Paul Verity Smith; 3D graphics and interface design by Doros Polydorou; original music and real time synthesis created by Oded Ben-Tal; scenography by Hsueh-Pei Wang, and lighting design by Mamen Rivera.

“Ukiyo” explores the layers of perceptions in an audiovisual world that constantly shifts and fragments; the audience is invited to move in and around the space which features five hanamichi (runways). Dancers and musicians perform simultaneous with digital objects that are projected. The music and visual choreography for “Ukiyo” are designed for real-time gestural interaction to animate the feedback system and generative algorithms through with the virtual space and the performer movement with audiophonic garments are intertwined. “Ukiyo” is performed by an international cast of several performers whose work developed in online collaboration with digital artists in Tokyo (and in Second Life), as part of a cross-cultural research venture in virtual environments directed by Birringer (Professor of Performance Technologies, DAP-Lab, Brunel School of Arts).

Mess
Alan Sondheim

Sandy Baldwin and Alan Sondheim AvaDance together in a prim-triggering takeover Dance, splurge on the chat, maybe have some sound at work beyond the usual click-clack, and work those altered mocap files at around 800 meters transparent space about erotics, neighborhood memory, being-mess.

Guest Blog - The Flying Trilobite

I am thrilled to introduce ARExistence's first guest blogger, Glendon Mellow. Glendon is an amazing artist inspired by the wonder of science and the natural world to create unique drawings and paintings. I met Glendon at SciBarCamp where he was leading a talk on the ways in which art and science can be mutually beneficial. The ways in which Glendon incorporates science into art are truly inspiring and the passion which he exhibits for the blending of the two fields is a fantastic and all to rare quality. Glendon blogs at The Flying Trilobite under the brilliant banner of Art in Awe of Science. Today, Glendon takes a hopeful look into the future of art as it increasingly views science as a part of an artistically inspired world.

*****

An Increase In Our Allegorical Vocabulary
By: Glendon Mellow

Realism in painting has a long history, from the linear narratives of the ancient world to the shattered realities of the Twentieth Century. For the lay-gallery-goer, the artwork of the Renaissance Masters, Symbolists, and the Surrealists captures the viewer's gaze through the feat of technical ability. Immediately recognizable figures surrounded by unfamiliar objects help the viewer to enter the unusual world by connecting through the shared human experience.

In my own painting, this is the sort of challenge I place in front of myself. The recognizable objects are the hook: the less-familiar organisms are the mystery that invites people to look further. Science, paleontology and biology have always figured into my work. The natural world is full of a staggering variety of forms to challenge a representational artist.

About a dozen years ago, I had a gallery show that encouraged me to pursue this path with renewed vigor. This oil painting, entitled Symbiosis, was garnering a fair bit of attention from friends and visitors attending the show's opening. A coffee-shop colleague and zoology-major stopped me and asked, "Ok -if this makes no sense to you, forget it- but is that a tardigrade?" I smiled and replied that it was, and she grinned, "Oh I could tell. They have those distinctive hooked feet!"

That was inspiring. Art for scientists who get it. Symbiosis, about the microbes in our ecosystem and in our guts. In these scientifically exciting times, why not stretch the public perception and appeal to everyone's curiosity? Why not delight scientists in their myriad disciplines?

When Richard Dawkins' The God Delusion debuted, I was excited, having enjoyed his previous books. In it, he held a challenge for every artist. If you are interested in science -atheist, agnostic, Bright, or not- take the time to consider this artistic call-to-arms:

"If history had worked out differently, and Michelangelo had been commissioned to paint a ceiling for a giant Museum of Science, mightn't he have produced something at least as inspirational as as the Sistine Chapel? How sad that we shall never hear Beethoven's Mesozoic Symphony, or Mozart's opera The Expanding Universe."

(Richard Dawkins, The God Delusion, p 86-87)

Will we see a scientifically-inspired artistic genius of that stature this century? It is my sincere hope that we we will. The world deserves to be that inspired, and to experience the wonder scientists engage in our universe.

CONNECT - Subtle Technologies Networking Party

CONNECT is a networking party and installation for Subtle Technologies Festival attendees and anyone with an interest in art, science, technology and music.

FEATURING

10 Tenori-On Networked Performance
Private/Public 2009 - Tech-Art Installation
DJ Vaneska
DJ MFFN

Tenori-On Network

A premier performance of ten networked Tenori-On's. The Tenori-On has been dubbed the "new digital musical instrument of the 21st Century". The Tenori-On brings music into a whole different light with a complex and visually stunning harmony of math and sound. The Tenori-On 'network' will be an experiment in communication and artistry as ten separate players will attempt to build a unified and cohesive electronic composition.

By: Tenori-On Players TBA
Joel Silver of Squarewave Music
Sponsored by: Yamaha

'Private-Public' 2009

A meditation on the darker undertones of the Internet, this installation invites users to enter their name into a console where they are shown with a projected stream of publicly accessible snippets of their online activities and identities, beginning with a slow trickle and then gradually crescendoing into an overwhelming flood.

By: Ken Leung, Kat Kleine, Sam Lalonde, Micayla Doria, Michael Boehm, and Bia Sena.

DJ Vaneska

Vaneska is your new favorite DJ. Her reputation as a tastemaker on new and fashionable music has made her an earmark in the City's party scene and at Toronto's high profile venues such as The Drake Hotel, The State Theatre, Wrongbar, and The Social. You can catch her every Friday at Circa spinning guilty pleasures in the Bathroom Bar or electro club anthems on the main stage.

"Music preferences have always been used to categorize individuals and communities. The advent of global networks however, has diversified and globalized our music tastes. Now we can identify with various music genres and styles at the same time. The new sound is not one, but many." - DJ Vaneska

DJ MFFN

MFFN is a Toronto alt-dance DJ who brings a musician’s energy to his layered live sets.

“Electronic music is as DIY as anything else. It evolves and mutates constantly. At times it has evoked the future, yet now has an ample history that provokes nostalgia. But a new sound or scene is no longer bound by geography; by virtue of networked lives, new things can unfold everywhere at once.” - DJ MFFN

Admission

Free for Festival Attendees
$15 Minimum donation at the door

Date: 9:00pm Saturday June 13th
Location: 99 Sudbury St.
For more information please visit http://www.subtletechnologies.com

Super Science Saturday

(Image: Flubber at the Grown-Up Science Fair)

On Saturday May 9th there was a city-wide series of science events that all fell under the banner of Science Rendezvous, or as some friends and I happily named it 'Super Science Saturday' (SSS). It was a full day of science fun that began with a wonderful 'unconference' called SciBarCamp.

What is an unconference? The night before the SSS a group of about 100 science-minded people gathered to eat, drink and make the schedule for the next days events. We stood in a circle (not geometrically correct I might add) and introduced ourselves, explaining why we were there and letting each other know what we might have to offer. Then we set to work creating different 'seminars' for the next day. Some people came prepared with an idea already in their head while others had to be convinced to present. Finally, once everyone had their presentations laid out there was a collaborative effort to organize the presentations into rooms and time slots on a giant board. When that was over one of the organizers e-mailed us the schedule so we had time to pick what we wanted to attend the next day.

The experience was amazing, everyone was involved and invested in the outcome of making a great schedule, it gave people a sense of propriety over the whole event that made things even more interesting. On the day of, the morning kicked off with a welcome before we split up into groups for a day of awesome seminars. I discovered and discussed all day long as I attended many fascinating talks ranging from collaborative crowd-sourced biotech to emotive architecture to a talk on how art can benefit science and visa versa.

SciBarCamp was a brilliant way to bring people together and get them involved in fascinating dialogs on all sorts of different sorts of science, I was truly happy to be a part of it and I look forward to next year.

After SciBarCamp, I continued on with the rest of SSS with Cafe Scientifique, the Toronto Transhumanist Meetup and the Grown-Up Science Fair put on by the Treehouse Group. We finished off Super Science Saturday with a little Science Fiction and went to check out the new Star Trek Movie!

Overall the day of science was a huge success - it was a wonderful experience and I hope next year it will bring out even more people (there was some rain which put a damper on the festivities on St. George St.)!

Thank you Science Rendezvous for an awesome day.

And thank you Science for being awesome, bringing us great developments and saving lives.

Let us never stop moving forward in the world of science and discovery.

And let us all work together to live long and prosper.