Finding new possibilities in “live” performances

What is live performance if we cannot physically assemble? Facing a COVID-19 world, many artists, curators and institutions have relied on digital space as an approximation to gathering for live performance. But “digital” as we know it is limited. What if we pushed the bounds of “digital” to include dreams, game worlds and technologies yet to be imagined? What if the futures of “live” performance allow us to translocate ourselves across sites, realms and realities where, despite everything, we can always come together

Freespace is producing three new works by Hong Kong artists responding to these urgent questions: Presence, Only when you sleep, it works and A Thousand Plateaus. They integrate onsite, online and body-based experiences, where audiences become central to co-creating these futures of live performance.

Performance details to be announced. Please refer to www.westkowloon.hk for the latest information.

Presence｜Only when you sleep, it works (working title)｜A Thousand Plateaus (working title)

Ivor Houlker, Michelle Li and Kenny Wong Chi-chuen: Presence

Presence questions how telepresence techniques can expand the possibilities and experience of online performance. Through an interdisciplinary approach, the project combines live performance, installation, game control programming and first-person game play. Using a specially developed online platform, audiences are physically “present” through remotely operated robotic video cars as their avatars, an extension of their bodies in another location, where, over the internet, they interact in real time with real people in a real space.

Creative Team:
Programming: Ivor Houlker
Mechatronics: Kenny Wong Chi-chuen
Producer: Michelle Li
Videography: Calvin Chan
Performers: Arisa Yasaratne (English), Michelle Li (Cantonese)
Mechatronics Assistants: Wesker Shek, Cat Fung, Dory Cheng, Vanessa Ip, Crystal Hui
Project Assistant: Owen Hui
Special thanks: Canaan Moving Co. Ltd.

Chan Kwun-fee, Fiona Lee and AK Kan: Only when you sleep, it works (working title)

Only when you sleep, it works (working title) explores sleep and dreaming as a site of live performance in a city that does not encourage any rest. Inspired by research on the human brain and subconscious, the work investigates the impact of dreaming on our lives when we are awake and whether we can deliberately impact our dreams. Do sounds and images as we fall asleep allow us to control and augment our dreams during REM (Rapid Eye Movement) cycles? Can we dream together as a collective? By relocating the experience of a live performance into the dreams of audience members, it blows open our conceptions of assembly, collective (un)consciousness and shared experiences.

Creative Team:
Dreamscape Research: Chan Kwun-fee
Soundscape Research: Fiona Lee, AK Kan
Production Manager: Lam Hing-lun
Research Assistant: Maurice Yim*
Co-ordinator: Meredith Wong*
Producer: Bobo Lee*

Rita Hui, Wong Pik-kei and Wong Ka-ying: A Thousand Plateaus (working title)

A Thousand Plateaus (working title) is a journey in virtual reality to rediscover and reconnect with your body. What if the experience of the virtual world does not privilege images? What if, instead, the sense of touch becomes the central interface of the digital experience? After all, the skin is the body’s largest organ, covered with receptors sensitive to pressure, vibration, temperature, sonic waves and more. What if, even with this new tactile virtual space, you become even less sure what is real? This work lures you down a rabbit hole beyond your current reality, perhaps into your deepest fantasies, to emerge on the other end, into a future you haven’t yet imagined.

Creative Team:
VR Concept: Rita Hui
Body and Senses Research: Wong Pik-kei
Gender and Eroticism Research: Wong Ka-Ying
Research Assistants: Joris Wu, Maurice Yim*
Co-ordinator: Meredith Wong*
Producer: Bobo Lee*

*Staff of West Kowloon Cultural District