CREW presents
C.A.P.E. TOHOKU
SCORES N°5: CHAOS
- Into the heart of the experience -
11-14 April 2012. (Tanzquartier Vienna)
C.A.P.E. (Cave Automatic Personal Environment) is the newest mobile immersive installation of » CREW. With C.A.P.E, you can shift your presence from one place to another in no time. Thanks to its state-of the art immersive technology, you can step into another body and walk around in a maybe far away city or a far away time...
What is C.A.P.E.?
C.A.P.E. ? : "Computer Assisted Personal Environment". An artistic concept and technical tour de force that transfers experience and illusion into the body itself. C.a.p.e puts you at the inside of the filmed image. With the help of video-glasses, trackers and a headset it is possible to explore a new reality, another space and time. C.A.P.E. was presented for the first time at the World Expo in Shanghai in September 2010.
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Brussels based performance group CREW Eric Joris has created a state-of-the-art medium in close collaboration with the University of Hasselt/EDM (B).
We call it C.A.P.E. : a Cave Automatic Personal Environment. C.A.P.E. is a new presentation format that is a cross between a cinematic experience and a self executed performance.
The first C.A.P.E. version is called C.A.P.E. Brussels and was created for the Belgian Pavilon at the World Expo in Shanghai (Sept 2010). Since it was presented in Ghent, Tourcoing, Antwerp, Mons, Warsaw and Amsterdam.
With multiple C.A.P.E. creations CREW is developing a performance format that puts the visitor at the centre of the experience. After the tactile C.A.P.E. Brussels, the documentary C.A.P.E. Tohoku, the intimate C.A.P.E. Pierrefonds, the narrative C.A.P.E. Horror and the playfull C.A.P.E. KIT , now follows C.A.P.E. Vooruit. |
C.A.P.E Tohoku is the first version of a new C.A.P.E., which explores a novel form of documentary. Four months after the earthquake and tsunami, Eric Joris travelled to Japan in August and spend a month wondering through North East Japan with his 360° camera. He filmed the heavily devastated Yuriage, where only a couple of buildings, including the crematorium, withstood the nature violence. C.A.P.E. Tohoku puts you in the middle of these devastated areas where debris is being cleaned away and where phantom cities and villages are being dismantled and reconstructed.
In C.A.P.E. Vooruit the artist evokes the time of early 20thcentury street parades and bands. The time of all the marching, to protest or to feast, on the rhythm of the Internationale. He takes you along to a world where the here and now seems to melt with the past. While the beats of numerous pounding feet, slow or firm, come together into a mutated Internationale.
To create C.A.P.E. Vooruit Eric Joris collaborated with ChampdAction and Harmony de Toekomst. Playing with time and speed, they created a surprising version of the socialist hymn. Thinking about the futurists'experiments of a hundred years ago, when new registration techniques made it possible to play with time as matter, they blended sound-takes of various tempi into a highly unusual sound-scape and immersive environment.
C.A.P.E. Overview
What if you could physically walk through the past or maybe the future? What if you could walk in a reality that is NOT HERE. What if an artist would transform your reality and put you right in the middle of his art work?
C.A.P.E. (Computer Automatic Personal Environment) is a futuristic system, a high-technology configuration and artistic concept that induces exactly this experience, this illusion in your body. Brussels based performance group CREW and artistic director Eric Joris have been experimenting with this concept for years and propose a whole new way to experience a documentary, a visit to the past, a performance, a far-away city....
A visitor is equipped with video-goggles, headphones and a portable computer. This 'immersive device'allows him to enter a different reality. Pre-recorded or real-time 360° film images in the video-goggles and omni-directional sound puts him literally in the middle of the image. He can look around into this filmed environment at free will. Moreover, he can move around and walk inside the virtual space. He is, so to speak, teleported from one place to another or fromone time to another.
The combination of looking, hearing, moving (and sometimes even touching) creates this bewildering illusion. An important mechanism here is the so-called sensorial deprivation: the lack of observation of one's own body, in favor of a newly represented body, intensifies the experience.
The technical concept of this ground-breaking medium was developed in close collaboration with the University of Hasselt/EDM (B).
In December 2009, CREW developed a prototype of this installation during a research residency at La Chartreuse in Villeneuve-les-Avignon (Fr). In 2010 CREW created the two first versions of this extra-ordinary visit, each adapted to the context of the place where it was presented. This first version was created for the Belgian Pavilion at Shanghai's World Expo in September 2010. C.A.P.E Brussels allowed over a hundred of Chinese Expo visitors to take a 15'walk through Brussels.
The second version C.A.P.E. Pierrefonds was commissioned by Les Monuments Nationaux (Fr) on the occasion of the theme week 'Monuments pour tous', organised in October 2010. In the Castle of Pierrefonds (Fr) visitors with limited mobility as well as other visitors of the historic site were offered an unusual walk through the castle. A walk that brought them to corners of the castle where no other visitor had gone, in secret halls, onto steep staircases and even up to the rooftops....
In November 2011 CREW presented a work-in-progress version of C.A.P.E Tohoku at the IDFA festival in Amsterdam. C.A.P.E Tohoku was premiered in the Museumsquartier and Tanzquartier in Vienna from 11th until 14th of April 2012.
C.A.P.E Tohoku is a radical step towards a new documentary. Footage of the Japanese area hit by the earthquake and tsunami was gathered by Eric Joris in August 2011, with a custom made 360° camera. The visitor of the C.A.P.E Tohoku performance walks right through the devastated area, the ghost towns, the debris and meets survivors wandering through uprooted streets...
During the walk, images from before, during and after the disaster are mixed and induce a tragic sort of immediacy. The immersive format strongly reinforces this directness and puts the visitor into the heart of the experience. |
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In February and March students of the Theatre Academy in Maastricht worked with CREW to develop a fictional version of C.A.P.E. C.A.P.E Horror was presented in Maastricht on April 5 and 6.
The exploration of C.A.P.E
The creative potential of this new, unexplored medium is immense. Over the next years, CREW will focus on the intensive exploration of this instrument by developing C.A.P.E applications in the widest possible domains and with a group of European partners.
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C.A.P.E is a strongly experience-based medium. It redefines the artistic experience and puts the visitor, who is no longer just an on-looker, into the heart of the experience. This unique, penetrating experience is accessible to all. It is CREW's aim to distribute the developed C.A.P.E projects as widely as possible and to share them with a with all types of audiences in many different settings.
We intend to find out how this special medium will develop in the hands of very different artists...
How it can be used to stimulate the artistic experience and creativity of children...
How it can function as a new tool for bringing the past to life in heritage sites or historic events...
How it can be explored as a radically new form of documentary, that makes current events elsewhere in the world strangely tangible...
How the heartbeat of a far away city can be transmitted to visitors, thousands of miles away...
How the museum visitor can be catapulted into another world...
Etc. Etc.
C.A.P.E presentation
C.A.P.E is a performance. Three, four or more visitors at once are equipped with the omni-directional equipment (the immersive device) , consisting of video-glasses, motion trackers, a head-set and a backpack with a computer. During about 15' they will walk through a new world. The visitors (we call them immersants) are being guided each by an assistant, who will accompany them during their walk and reinforce the experience with occasional tactile interventions. An operator ensures the necessary technological back-up. |
The experience is presented in a continuous way, one session after the other, so that almost 100 visitors per day can experience this mesmerizing walk. Simultaneously an unlimited number of onlookers can enjoy the event. After all, the performance can take place in any semi-public space, such as a museum, a library, an entrance hall of a theatre or conference hall, a shopping mall, a school, a castle...
In this space, images of the 'immersive world' are projected on large screens, so that passers-by or other visitors of the site can follow the event. With C.A.P.E, CREW swaps the familiar inside of the art centre or theatre for the public space, where it aims to trigger the curiosity of many passers-by or accidental visitors and to share with them the excitement of stepping into the future.
IMMERSIVE TECHNOLOGY
CREW has a longstanding experience in setting up performative, experimental productions with "immersive technology".
Spectators (here called "immersants") are equipped with lightweight orientation tracked head mounted display (HMD), a head mounted miniature camera, plus surround sound headphones.
Video streams from the head mounted cameras, from pre-recorded omni-directional sequences or live from custom designed on-site omni-directional cameras, are multiplexed.
Under the guidance of an assistant, immersants are then teleported from the "here and now", to the "neither here or now", to the "here but not now", or to the "now but not here" - perhaps next to, or even into each other's body.
Subtly timed audio feedback and tactile interventions further enhance the feeling of immersion and enrich the immersants' experience.
CREW's performance experiments translate omni-dimensional video to the world of live arts; they are investigations in how immersive technologies can lead to the creation of interesting new forms of experience, by installing a new intimacy with the spectator and by mixing real and virtual experiences in novel ways. |
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Omni-dimensional video is a high-impact visual medium, of which the creative potential has only recently begun to be explored. The dramaturgical strategies developed by CREW for this technology in its performances and installations lead to unprecedented levels of involvement and intimacy.
- Gallery No.1. - | - Gallery No.2. -
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CREDITS
Eric Joris, artistic direction
Philippe Bekaert, design technology and software
Vincent Jacobs, technology
Chantalla Pleiter, artistic co-ordination
Koen Goossens, operator
Vicky Vermoezen, production and administration
Hilde Teuchies, general direction
CREW is subsidised by the Ministry of Culture of the Flanders (B) and by VGC, Brussels.
C.A.P.E Brussels was created with the support of the Government of the Brussels Region
C.A.P.E Pierrefonds was created with the support of Monuments Nationaux, Paris
C.A.P.E Tohoku was created with the support of Act for Japan, VRT/Canvas, X_TV, 2020 3D Media.
C.A.P.E Horror was created with the support of Theatre Academy Maastricht and SIA-RAAK.
C.A.P.E. Brussels was presented in:
- World Expo Shanghai, Belgian Pavillion, September 2010
- Magda Galery, Shanghai, September 2010
- Le Fresnoy, Tourcoing (Fr) , ABC exhibition, November 2010
- Photography Museum, Antwerp (B) , Kino-Eye Conference, December 2010
- Future Internet week, I_Mind, Ghent (B) , December 2010
- Rencontres Professionnelles, VIA Festival, Mons (B) , 24, 25, 26 March 2011
- TEDx event, Vlerick Management School, Ghent (B) , 11 June 2011
- Culture 2.0 conference, NINA, Warsaw, (PL) , 27, 28, 29 October 2011
- IDFA (International Documentary Festival) , De Brakke Grond, Amsterdam, November 2011
- Experimental Crossings Symposium, Maastricht Art Academy (NL) , February 2012
- Den Bosch Film Art Festival, s'Hertogenbosch (NL) , April 2012
- BMW Guggenheim Lab, Berlin, July 2012
- SIGN festival, Groningen, October 2012
C.A.P.E Pierrefonds was presented in
- Le château de Pierrefonds (Fr) , Monuments pour Tous, October 2010
C.A.P.E Tohoku was presented in
- IDFA (International Documentary Film Festival) , Amsterdam (Nl) / work-in-progress version, November 2011
- SCORES, Tanzquartier, Vienna, April 2012 (première)
- BMW Guggenheim Lab, Berlin, July 2012
C.A.P.E Horror was presented in
- Theatre Academy Maastricht, April 2012
- SIGN festival, Groningen, October 2012 |
Texts (Press)
Past Dates
- 03-02-2013 - Mois Multi, Québec, Canada
- 02-02-2013 - Mois Multi, Québec, Canada
- 01-02-2013 - Mois Multi, Québec, Canada
- 31-01-2013 - Mois Multi, Québec, Canada
- 11-11-2012 - Festival van de creativiteit, Turnhout (BE)
- 10-11-2012 - Festival van de creativiteit, Turnhout (BE)
- 10-10-2012 - Galery SIGN, Groningen (NL)
- 07-07-2012 - BMW Guggenheim Lab Berlin (Duitsland)
- 14-04-2012 - Bosch Art Festival,'s Hertogenbosch (NL)
- 13-04-2012 - Bosch Art Festival,'s Hertogenbosch (NL)
- 10-02-2012 - Maastricht Academy of Music, Netherlands
- 21-11-2011 - Brakke Grond, Amsterdam
- 20-11-2011 - Brakke Grond, Amsterdam
- 19-11-2011 - Brakke Grond, Amsterdam
- 18-11-2011 - Brakke Grond, Amsterdam
- 17-11-2011 - Brakke Grond, Amsterdam
- 29-10-2011 - Kultura 2.0, Warsaw (PL)
- 28-10-2011 - Kultura 2.0, Warsaw (PL)
- 26-03-2011 - VIA Festival, Mons (BE)
- 25-03-2011 - VIA Festival, Mons (BE)
- 24-03-2011 - VIA Festival, Mons (BE)
- 16-12-2010 - iMinds, IBBT, Ghent
- 11-12-2010 - Kino Eye #10, Cinema Zuid, Antwerp
- 10-11-2010 - Le Fresnoy, Tourcoing Cedex, France
- 22-10-2010 - Chateau de Pierrefonds, France
- 20-09-2010 - Brussels days, Begian EU Pavilion, Expo 2010 Shanghai, China
- 18-09-2010 - Brussels days, Begian EU Pavilion, Expo 2010 Shanghai, Chin
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CREW presents
TERRA NOVA
Project TERRA NOVA
» Terra Nova takes us back to R. F. Scott's fatal expedition to the South Pole, in 1911. Beaten by only a month by the Norwegian Roald Amundsen, the English explorer and his team perish dramatically on their way back. Unfolding the steps and thoughts of the commander, Peter Verhelst's text plunges the audience into the debacle of the expedition. But the adventure does not end there. During the performance, each spectator is immersed in other bewildering realities. His senses are stretched beyond limits, his emotions and concentration challenged. Scott's solitary disarray is echoed by the immersive and transitional experience of the audience, leaving them, in turn, in doubt. And so, the spectator's own remarkable voyage unveils a universe of the 'self', previously unknown to him: his own interior Terra Nova...
Directors are Eric Joris and Stef De Paepe ; actors (alternating) Robby Cleiren and Jorre Vandenbussche. Other artistic collaborators are Vincent Jacobs, Kreng and Chantalla Pleiter.
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Terra Nova is the result of years of artistic research and accumulated know-how. In CREW's immersive performances a new approach to theatre writing emerges, in which narration is transmitted as much by sound, image and tactile sensations as it is by words. Using state-of-the art technology, perception is incorporated into the actual body of the audience. The spectator, finding himself to be at the centre of the device, becomes the protagonist of the performance. If theatre is the art of awareness, - no other art focalises with the same intensity on the here and now - then the immersive theatre of CREW is the art of immediacy, of extreme vigilance.
The audience's uncanny experiences in Terra Nova conjure up questions that are also raised by neuroscience: What is the 'self'? What is reality if it is so simply manipulated? What is this reality of seeing, hearing, moving in space, if my body allows itself to be diverted so easily?
CREW does not solve these enigmas, but invites us to explore them by confronting us with real and disturbing sensations.
Terra Nova is part of a European collaboration project on the role of the spectator in contemporary performing arts. First presented in La Chartreuse in Villeneuve-les-Avignon (Avignon Festival) in July 2011, Terra Nova also travels to European cities such as Budapest, Graz, Kortrijk, Brussels, Rotterdam, Ghent, Zagreb, Hasselt and Prato. |
Terra Nova is a live art project, a combination of a theatre performance, a visual experience and an immersive adventure.
Central in the performance are key contemporary issues raised by recent neurological research on consciousness, issues that are directly linked to CREW's years of exploration of immersive technologies.
Who are we? What is the 'self'? How do we perceive this 'self'? Is our body to be trusted as an interface between the reality and our self? How can we 'construct'our state-of-consciousness? How malleable is the individual? Where does manipulation start?
Director Eric Joris and writer Peter Verhelst are greatly inspired by the discourse of neuro-philosopher Thomas Metzinger (D) and draw a parallel between current explorations of our brain and the dramatic quest of explorer R.F.Scott and his race to the south-pole at the beginning of the 20thcentury. Combining state-of-the art technology in omni-directional environments, contemporary theatrical set-ups and visual effects, they 'immerse'the audience into a mesmerizing narrative.
Terra Nova is accessible for a group of 55 visitors at a time and lasts about 1h20'. The project will be performed twice a day.
B A C K G R O U N D
Terra Nova addresses key issues raised by neurologists and philosophers today. Modern philosophy of mind and cognitive neuroscience together are about to shatter the myth of the self. Thomas Metzinger, a German neuro-philosopher is an important contributor to this debate. In his latest book 'The Ego Tunnel', he argues that there is no such thing as the self.
Everything what we call the 'self', an acting and thinking me, is in fact a constant firing away of neutrons in the brain. There is no core that guides everything, no little man pushing the buttons. The disenchantment of the self is a fact, says Metzinger.
Consciousness is mainly a biological phenomenon. The brain makes a representation of the world, based on sensory impressions. There is no direct link between the world and the consciousness; what is being experienced is always a simulation, a virtual appearance. In other words, using our body (eyes, ears, touch etc) as an interface, the brain makes a simulation of the world. This simulation is so perfect that we do not realize that it is an image in our head. We are hardly aware that the image of the world in our head is being modelled by an interface, our own body. One can say that the interface becomes transparent, invisible. Next, based on this simulation (our first person perspective on this world) the brain generates an inner image of the self as a whole, thus creating the conscious self-model.
Today, man not only has a deeper understanding of how our brain creates consciousness, he is also rapidly developing ever more sophisticated tools to alter the contents of subjective experience. Scientists can literary influence and control the chemistry in our brain and therefore also our consciousness and actions. Stimulating certain parts of the brain can, for example, trigger religious experiences or help to control epilepsy attacks. Our sense of self, our spatial understanding, and the feeling of embodiment can be manipulated and even controlled. Using new kinds of medication, we can even enhance cognition and fine-tune emotional layers of self-consciousness.
This raises a number of serious ethical questions. Is there such a thing as the soul? What about free will, personal autonomy, or moral accountability? Or, as Metzinger puts it, should we not start thinking about what we consider to be valuable forms of self-experience, about what we feel is a good state of consciousness?
Today we are only at the beginning of a development that can have an enormous social and cultural impact. The way Metzinger sees it: "There has been considerable progress, but as far as our conscious minds are concerned, we still live in prehistoric times. Our theories about consciousness are as naïve as the first ideas cavemen probably had about the true nature of the stars."
How does all this link in with CREW's performing arts practice?
In The Ego Tunnel , Metzinger examines recent evidence that people born without arms or legs can experience a sensation that they do in fact have limbs and how we can actually feel a human touch in a rubber hand placed on a desk in front of us. Similarly, he reveals how the state of our experiential self changes when we become lucid while we are dreaming, and how our sense of self can even be transposed into a three-dimensional computer-generated image of our body in a cyber space simply by using virtual reality goggles, creating a conflict between the seeing self and the feeling self. |
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CREW's experiences with immersive technology environments, explored over the last 7 years in performances and interactive installations, have triggered a few of the exact same questions that are being raised by neuro-physiologists and neuro-philosophers today. Do we really see what we think we see? Am I really where I see I am? Is this me or is this someone else's body? Am I here or not here? Etc etc. Parallel to the developments of neuroscience and initially unaware of its recent findings, Eric Joris has created artistic experiences that literally invite visitors to explore not only the newest in omni-directional virtual environments but also the effects of these environments ontheir sensorial perception, sense of presence, consciousness and brain. We can say that CREW has developed a configuration that allows the visitor to experiment with a new phenomenal body. Thus, the esthetical experiences offered in CREW performances such as Crash (2005) , U_Raging Standstill (2006) , EUX (2008), W (Double U) (2008) , Line Up (2009) and C.A.P.E (2010) are at the same time also quests into the visitor's relationship to reality and to simulations of that reality. And more than that, they are explorations of the fascinating world of his own body and mind...
T H E P E R F O R M A N C E
Terra Nova is an environment that offers the audience a mix of visual, auditory and sensorial impulses in different degrees of intensity and coming from various perspectives at the same time. A narrative guides them physically and mentally through the experience. Central to this narrative are both the functioning of the brain and the metaphor of explorer R.F.Scott's trip to the South Pole.
CREW: Terra Nova from herbst remixed on Vimeo.
The concept is developed by multi-media artist Eric Joris. The text is written by Flemish writer, playwright and poet Peter Verhelst. The story board and stage direction are in the hands of Eric Joris and actor and director Stef De Paepe.
Terra Nova is accessible for 55 visitors at the same time. During the performance, the group will be split up into 5 smaller groups of 11 persons. Each group will be taken through a sequence of several scenes, some of them text-related, others taking them into the world of 'immersion'. The order of these scenes is different for each group. At the end all 5 groups (55 spectators) come together in one and the same final scene.
The spine of the performance is the poetical text of Peter Verhelst, pronounced by actor Robby Cleiren. The text evokes the thoughts and state-of-mind of Robert Falcon Scott during his dramatic adventure in Antarctica.
Moving from the more theatrical scenes into the 'immersive'experiences, the audience will literally 'step into'Scott's brain and move through his imagery. During these immersive scenes, CREW's ground-braking omni-directionnal film-environment will create a parallel world for each of the spectators, a world that is both drastically real and full of fantasy... They become the participants of a bizarre expedition, taking place on the inside of their own brain, and they are thus transformed into the true protagonists of the event...
Eric Joris will also work with the French artist Woudi Tat and his interactive device: the 'Skin Slider'. Tat's device allows to install a physical dialogue amongst actor and spectator and adds yet another physical and auditory layer to this unusual encounter with the audience.
The theatre experience offered by Eric Joris and his artistic collaborators is fragmented and multi-layered. It refers to the way that we perceive our world today: a networked mediated society offering multiple, simultaneous perspectives on the world and its events; creating a wide scope of realities, rather than one.
About CREW and Eric Joris
» CREW is a Brussels based art collective founded by Eric Joris, operating on the border between art and science, between performing arts and new twchnology. CREW's activities are focused on creation and research. Both activities are strongly connected and mutually influential.
Artist Eric Joris develops his live art projects in close collaboration with his small team and with engineer Philippe Bekaert (EDM, Expertise Center for Digital Media, University of Hasselt) and media art theoretician Kurt Vanhoutte (University of Antwerp).
Electronic and digital media form the basis of unique artistic way of thinking and the engine for aesthetic experiences and reflection. This results in hybrid performances and installations that question and underline commonly accepted performance parameters.
In the course of the past yeasr CREW has created a unique position for itself in the field of performing arts in Belgium and in Europe with important productions such as 'Philoctetes (2002), 'Crash' (04-05), 'U_Raging Standstill' (2006), 'O_Rex' (2007), 'W (Double U)' (2008), 'EUX' (2009) 'C.A.P.E. (2010-2011-2012) and 'Terra Nova' (2011).
CREW is supported by a network of dedicated partners: EDM University Hasselt (B), Art Centre Vooruit / Ghent (B), Art Centre Buda / Kortrjik (B), V_2 (Institute for Unstable Media) / Rotterdam (NL), Le Manége, CECN / Mons, Technocité / Mons (B) and La Chartreuse / Villeneuve les Avignon (FR).
CREW receives structural funding from the Cultural Ministry of the Flemish Government and VGC, Brussels. CREW is a member of 2020 3D Media, a European research consortium, supported by the EU (FP7). CREW is a member of X_TV, a Belgian research project.
For more information visit: www.crewonline.org and contact Hilde Teuchies (*32-477-354088)
» Spirituális Ezotéria - Egy Második Élet Kapujában
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