We've been thinking about it since November, and it's finally here!
Enjoy Your Flight
Friday, April 4 and Saturday, April 5
6 - 8 pm
Video Studio, Duderstadt Center
North Campus, University of Michigan
Experience surveillance and suspicion in an interactive airport environment.
An interactive performance funded by the GROCS grant exploring issues of privacy and surveillance in a simulated airport.
This is a performance unlike any you've ever experienced, where the line between actor and audience doesn't exist, fiction becomes fact and your flight may in fact be delayed.
Spread the word - the more people who fly, the better the experience for everyone.
And make sure to see Noteworks' demo starting from 5 pm both nights!
Posted by kralko at 12:17 PM | Comments (0)
Call for Actors
Are you interested in being involved in a theater piece like no other? Minimal lines, minimal costumes, minimal rehearsals and maximum impact? Enjoy your Flight is looking for you! We are a GROCS funded project presenting an interactive theater piece dealing with issues of privacy and surveillance in a simulated airport setting.
The roles have various levels of commitment and require little to no memorization. The idea is to react at a certain time to a certain stimulation, whether that be an action, a speech, or a noise. Roles range from the more visible (a provacateur, Patriot Act Supporter) to more standardized (Security Guard, EMT) to the minor (Victim, Messenger).
Performances are at 7 pm on Friday and Saturday April 4-5 in the Video Studio in the Duderstadt Center on North Campus.
For those with more intensive roles, there will be a brief discussion/rehearsal on Friday, March 28th at 6 pm. Dinner will be provided :).
If interested, please contact Katy Ralko at kralko@umich.edu.
Posted by kralko at 10:12 PM | Comments (0)
Out of all the GROCS groups this cycle, our wrap seems the most clear cut. We've been working all semester with the idea of a final set of performances in mind.
Enjoy Your Flight : Encounter Surveillance and Suspicion in an Interactive Airport Experience
Duderstadt Ceter Video Studio
Gallery opening at 6 pm with Noteworks
Performance following the reception at 7 pm
We're working hard with the DMC staff and Noteworks to coordinate all of the details (and all the projectors we need!).
All seems to be progressing well, we're knocking task after task off of our to-do list. Check out our poster image in Bluestream!
Have a happy and safe weekend!
Posted by kralko at 03:10 PM | Comments (0)
I spent the break in Scotland visiting a friend that goes to University in St. Andrew's and was fascinated by the prevalence of surveillance cameras and signs about their presence I found there. Every private residence just about was displaying some sign of being a client of a private security firm. Every store, restaurant and pub displayed some sort of notice that 24/7 surveillance was in place in the establishment. In order to fairly assess congestion taxes, cameras photograph license plates entering into London, and send a bill to the registered owner for the tax.
Despite the feeling that I was photographed more by the UK government than I was by my traveling companions, it was certainly an experience to see th prevalence of the surveillance technology, and the extent to which the residents had accepted its presence in their lives. Crime is in fact lower in the UK, so the constant surveillance might in fact be an effective deterrent. Personally, I'm interested to see if the atmosphere that we create in our performance can replicate this feeling of pervasive, ubiquitous surveillance, and whether or not our audience will accept its presence with the same nonchalance I saw in the UK.
Posted by kralko at 04:09 PM | Comments (0)
After another hugely productive meeting on Sunday, we have finally thought through/documented all of the nodes of our performance. Instead of a traditional script with actors and lines, our performance is based loosely on the game Mafia. We have a set group of characters, divided into three groups based on their knowledge of the overall performance. Their actions and interactions trigger events, and hopefully the line between audience and performer is blurred to a great extent.
We also have a rudimentary sketch of what the Video Studio will look like in terms of set design. We will of course be cleaning this sketch up and finalizing the location of our set pieces in the days to come, but being able to see the space on paper was a huge excitement for us this week.
Over Spring Break, we all have our separate tasks to accomplish, whether starting to record some of the audio for the space to making contacts with the Theater Department. Once we return, we have exactly one month until opening night, which is so exciting, and also terrifying.
One final note: We are also looking for a name and description of our performance as Ourobouros is unspellable as well as hard to pronounce. Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated!
Posted by kralko at 12:57 PM | Comments (0)
Due to the fun time that is midterms, Ourobouros has had to take a small break this week. We promise to blog again on Sunday to share all the details of our script workday, but to tide you over until then check out the PA announcements in the repository.
Posted by kralko at 04:11 PM | Comments (0)
Sorry for the delay in posting, but Ourobouros has been very busying hosting Design Reviews, working on their script and writing long entries that are deleted by the magical world of technology.
Design Review on Friday was a huge success! We led a game of Mafia after a short presentation on our work so far, and had a very enlightening discussion about what can make people suspicious of one another. It seems as if prior information about the relationships between groups and individuals is the chief way to determine the "culprit" in a game like mafia, as well as eye-line matches :). We received lots of helpful feedback on our performance structure and qualities of our audience to keep in mind, and look forward to having another Design Review soon, where we can test out a more advanced version of our "game".
We are also working furiously to get the "script" done before we all leave for our much anticipated spring break. If we were to post our script as it stands right now, one of two things would happen. We would either give away all our secrets, or it would be so far from a conventional script that it was incomprehensible. The document is hard to represent in words, as seen by the fact that we had a whiteboard and a scribe and we still were confused. It is most like a list of characters and their motivations, and the ways that their interactions with each other as well as the audience trigger certain events or actions. We are hoping that once we get the bulk of the performance thought through and plotted out, it will become easier to start planning the set design, the lighting and all of the other more traditional theater elements. In any case, we are right on schedule and very optimistic about the work that we've done so far, and hope to continue at this pace even past spring break.
Posted by kralko at 02:55 PM | Comments (0)
We had a hugely productive meeting on Sunday afternoon and have made a lot of headway in the script planning. In fact, we've moved away from the idea of a script completely and have found a great deal of inspiration in a children's game, Mafia.
Mafia is a game where a group of people sit in a circle and a narrator drives the game. The narrator chooses a number of people to be mafia members, unbeknownst to the larger group. The game progresses as the mafia decides which members of the town to kill, and the townspeople, through a process of nomination and voting, decide who they think are guilty. Those who are decided guilty by the town, and also those killed by the mafia, are "killed" and must sit in silence for the rest of the game, but are able to observe the proceedings. Depending on the personality of the group, more and more conditions and roles can be introduced into the town. The game ends when either all the townspeople are dead, or when all of the mafia have been found out.
What makes people suspicious of one another? Many factors could contribute to this phenomenon: race, gender, previous information about the person, social conditioning, the circumstances under which the person is encountered, and the list goes on and on. We want to base a performance around a group of people who are forced to be suspicious of one another and the ways that this affects the group dynamic.
Our idea as it stands now is to frame the experience as if the audience are passengers in an airport, waiting to embark on a flight. They will pass through a "checkpoint" in order to enter the airport gate. As an audience member, the experience should be similar to waiting for a flight - banks of TVs, conversation, chairs, newspapers, magazines, PA announcements, security. However, suspicion rises among the group when alerts are sent out about terror levels, suspicious persons circulate and packages are introduced. The outcome of the "experience" is not predetermined, but the responses to suspicion will determine the sequence of events.
Next week, we are holding a Design Review in DL-1 during the regular GROCS Friday meeting. We hope to play a round or two of Mafia and have a discussion about what arouses suspicion. We're hoping for lots of ideas and inspiration from our lovely colleagues. Have a great, snowy weekend!
Posted by kralko at 04:11 PM | Comments (0)
Welcome all to the new online home of Ourobouros: Closing the Loop on Surveillance Technology. We are working on an interactive art installation using the resources of the Digital Media Commons in the Duderstadt Center.
We have received our official dates for the interactive experience we've been working so hard to plan from the Video Studio Planning Committee, so mark your calendars for:
Friday April 4th and Saturday April 5th!!!!
We are deep in the process of planning out what the exact format of our interactive experience will be, but promise to keep you updated with any new progress. We are working on a nonlinear "script" right now, in which audience feedback contributes to and controls the path the narrative follows. We have several ideas for different paths in the narrative and are attempting to connect them in logical ways.
In other exciting news, we are also planning to collaborate with another GROCS group, Noteworks. They are working on an interactive audio visual space that we hope to combine with our installation. We are getting tons of ideas from the interaction between our two groups and hope the combined space will be interesting and exciting when it finally comes together.
We are planning a workday on Sunday and will have more to update after that point. Have a good weekend!
Posted by kralko at 04:04 PM | Comments (0)
2009 Call for Proposals (.pdf)
2009 Proposal Abstract Entry Form
Proposal Abstracts Due October
Reviewers‘ Gates (log in required)
new team entry
GROCS '08 PROJECTS [Winter 2008]
GROCS '07 PROJECTS [Winter 2007]
GROCS '06 PROJECTS [Winter 2006]
GROCS '05 PROJECTS [Winter 2005]
grocs.info@umich.edu
University of Michigan, Ann Arbor
