Imagine a theater without actors. Multiple screens of imagery, objects and mechanical devices are the only things that appear onstage in Sin City (罪惡之城), a theater piece about four characters on as they count down earth’s final 24 hours.
A collaboration between artist and academic Wang Jun-jieh (王俊傑) and new-media artist group LuxuryLogico (豪華朗機工), the 60-minute show is envisioned by its creators as a hybrid between an installation and a performance, or a “trans-disciplinary” project between the visual and performing arts.
“People talk about crossover art but don’t know exactly what they are saying. Crossover means exploring the possibility of creating a new artistic form. If two artists from different fields collaborate without understanding each other’s art and strive to create something new, they end up doing stuff on their own and merely putting together the separate works. The result is no different than a conventional performance,” says Wang, who is also the chief director of the Center for Art and Technology at the Taipei National University of the Arts (TNUA).
Photo Courtesy of Huntz Yen, Center for Art and Technology, TNUA
In other words, Sin City is not a theatrical performance in the conventional sense. It integrates various media and divergent elements into a high-tech stage piece that’s a reflection of our own highly digitalized world.
There is a film with a loose narrative about four characters in a warehouse: a traffic cop, a young woman who steals, a Gambian working at a multinational corporation as a high-ranking manager and a store employee played by renowned film actress Lu Yi-ching (陸弈靜). It is Earth’s final day, its eventual destruction the result of information technology run amok. The setting is decisively minimalist and cold. There is no dialogue; the characters drift throughout the warehouse, looking almost as artificial as the sealed, manmade space.
Wang says the warehouse is an apt symbol for globalization.
“Merchandise from all over the world is shipped to the store for people to buy, eat, drink and be entertained by. Multinational corporations are omnipresent; material desires fill the air,” he says.
Onstage, fragments of the film are projected onto three screens of different sizes. Standing between the layers of moving images, a robotic arm is at work, transporting objects on a conveyor belt, while some items resemble the obelisks of ancient Egypt. The whole stage can be seen as a factory that constantly produces goods. The mechanical rhythm is interrupted when the robotic arm moves around with an installed camera, recording and playing videos simultaneously on the screens.
Wang says the project is a challenge to the whole crew as all elements need to be in sync. For example, while the robotic arm does only three simple movements in the factory, it is re-programmed to perform 300 different actions for the performance. Programs are devised and tested in order to precisely synchronize light, music, images and mechanical movement.
The idea to create a theater piece without actors first came to Wang two years ago. Sin City has been in production for more than a year.
“When you have performers on stage, they attract most of the attention. The most difficult part of our work is that we are making something out of nothing and have to do it precisely and in perfect sync,” he explains.
The performance is equally challenging for audiences because the presentation is never straightforward, but abstract and highly symbolic. The reading of it requires an open attitude, the director says.
“The way audiences approach and grasp the work is more akin to the way people understand contemporary art … To enter a work of contemporary art, one must open him or herself to free association, imagination and multiple meanings,” Wang says.
Sin City is part of the ongoing Digital Performing Arts Festival (數位表演藝術節), which opened yesterday and runs through Nov. 10 in Taipei and Greater Kaohsiung. Two other performances are Wu Hsing-kuo’s (吳興國) Metamorphosis (蛻變), a Peking Opera-style solo show inspired by Franz Kafka’s novel of the same name, and the multi-award-winning Technodelic Visual Show by SIRO-A from Japan. For more information, go to the festival’s Web site at www.digitalperformingarts.tw.
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