Mixed Reality performance
October 2024
video
HELD IN HUMAN II: ROSE IN YOUR BRAIN
Something is changing, I can no longer make sense of what here means, as I increasingly feel that while I am here, I am also always a little bit there. There, where my thoughts are, there where my imagination roams — and not only mine, but someone else’s as well, simultaneously. It is real. I am always inside a body, in this form that makes me visible and touchable; yet I am also always in a space, where no one can see me. It is a space of thought, an ever-present network, a movement. I am here, held in human, Rose in Your Brain.
It is a mixed-reality performance, a collective thought space, a choreography of thoughts. Perhaps the simplest way to describe it is as a directed interactive 3D reading experience. In this piece, confronting text and meaning making become an active, full-body experience.
We use Meta-Quest 3 VR headsets with the see-through feature to create an augmented reality where the audience can view both the physical space and a virtual layer within it. Thanks to the see-through feature, the virtual layer aligns with the physical environment, so motion sickness - often experienced in full VR - is not an issue here. Hands are free — no controllers are needed to interact; it is one cohesive mixed reality.
In Held in Human II: Rose in Your Brain, there is no other performer than the audience itself. The idea and the audience meet directly, without the interpretation of a performer’s body. The audience is not passively seated in a chair; instead, it becomes the protagonist of the piece, free to explore and follow its own interests. It is an example how to use new technology to bring in more freedom and democracy, cultural exchange in art and theatre making.
Beginning with the pandemic and continuing with the ongoing crises, we as theater makers and artists are questioning who and where the audience is, who and where the performer should be, and where and what can be a stage.
Rose in Your Brain brings together texts by Estonian author Ene Mihkelson, inspiration from Samuel Beckett’s Waiting for Godot, current world news, and audience input from the first iteration of Held in Human.
Authors: Liis Vares and Taavet Jansen
Mixed reality solution: Norbert Pape
Sound design: Mihkel Tomberg
Graphic design: Jaan Evart
Room design: Mari Möldre
Photographer: Alissa Šnaider
Producer: Anu Almik, elekrton.art
Premiere: 14.11.2024 at University of Tartu Library
Festivals: 26.-27.10 showing PAD festival Wiesbaden Germany and 2-5.11 showing IMPACT festival Liege Belgium
Supporters: Estonian Ministry of Culture, Cultural Endowment of Estonia, Tallinn city, Dortmund Academy of Theater and Digitality, Estonian Academy of Arts through the ACuTe project, Erasmus program, VARES Valga Architecture Residency, University of Tartu
