Gabis score 26th July

score for scene phrase/table –

Sensory fix for one audience member

Setup with props:
One chair stage right facing front
One table stage left by the wall
Two portable headphones hung up at the back wall

Audience instruction: please enter and sit on the chair. When the door opens, you will be asked to leave again. There are two sets of headphones on the wall. One of them gives information, one gives options/instructions of interaction. If you want to, choose one of them only.

Situation: before audience walks in, the three performers are in the headlock (dead end conflict situation). This is projected into the watching room. As the door opens and the audience member interrupts, they break out of this and go to their starting positions for the scene:

Dona: against stage right wall, behind chair, waiting

Gabi: against stage right wall, in front of chair, waiting

As audience sits on the chair, light changes, performers walk slowly towards person on chair, then past to start phrase.

Focus: observing audience but not aggressive, as if they are entering our territory as a superior species, there is an atmosphere between the two performers that suggests competition and a post-conflict situation. However they remain in unison until the phrase break into slide and rest (&look).

Option 1: they pick up the headphone with information. They get the text from strange days, it develops, gets more intense and persistent.

Our phrase expands to be bigger than the room, ignoring the walls as a stopping point

Option 2: they are being asked to substitute a missing performer. They need to go to the table, and drag it to the other side of the room, through the performers. The noise it makes is the sound needed for this scene.

We find a way for this sound to influence the sequence (maybe stop and go, or cues such as a long drag means something, a few short ones mean another thing)

Sensory Fix

We have been speaking a lot about the notion of a sensory fix, coming out of Strange Days, and I did a quick search for essays around this idea. There's a really engaging article 'Merge Invisible Layers' by John Beckmann at www.ctheory.net/articles.aspx?id=112 - I'm going to read through it to see if it has resonance with what we've spoken about. I know that we are not literally exploring virtual reality but I like his challenge to the boundaries between the visceral/virtual and the cyborg poetics mixed with techno-control.