Satellites Of The Self

An interactive audiovisual performance

Vera Sebert
Raimonda Žiūkaitė

The growth of an identity is a constantly dynamic process, which is formed by external influences on the self. Thereby the self-reflection by digital and social media plays an increasingly important role.

On our screens we are used to seeing the fragments of a fast-paced and volatile construct. Characters are optimized, transformed and flattened. How can this selective and fragmented image of the self get more complex and comprehensive, so that it goes together with the fluid and procedural character of a human identity?

This question is the starting point for a sound based performance. The virtual staging of identity is compressed, scaled, trans-formed and critically questioned in a generative setting: The movement and the voice of the performer are captured by a webcam and a microphone and represented in a live-stream. Thereby the stream’s video image is transformed depending on the input of the performer’s voice. The result is a distorted duplication of the performer, which is live projected back on her body.

Like this a constant interactive process between the real performer and her virtual double is provoked, that can be directly comprehended by viewers, who themselves get part of the process for example by getting captured by a camera movement.

By integrating the viewers into the live-stream the border between watching and being watched is dissolving. In our performance the video reacts to the pitch of the voice and according to this project’s particular images. Going further, we can reach the point where not a human voice at all, but some wildly transformed sounds would come out from the performer’s mouth, thus achieving not only depersonalization but even dehumanization of the performer.

Tickets: free entrance
(limited seats available, please register: contact@ltartvienna.com)