Super Vision

“A Cross-Media Performance
We are surrounded by subtle and unseen forms of surveillance of the data we create as we move through our daily lives, and at the same time our identities seem increasingly to be constituted of data. What is the relationship between who we are and the cloud of data which surrounds each one of us? In post-9/11 daily life, we have come to accept, allow, and even encourage this new post-visual form of surveillance and its constant incursions into the realm of our “selves.” What forces encourage our permissiveness and engagement in the process of collecting this data and making it public, and what will the results of it be?

SUPER VISION is a collaboration between the New York-based performance and media ensemble The Builders Association (www.thebuildersassociation.org), a company which exploits the richness of contemporary technologies to extend the boundaries of theater, and dbox (www.dbox.com), a multidisciplinary studio whose work explores the intersection of visual arts and architecture through 3D digital media.

SUPER VISION explores the changing nature of our relationship to living in a post-private society, where personal electronic information is constantly collected and distributed. The data files collected on us circulate like extra bodies, and these “data bodies” carry stains that are harder to clean than mud or sin; from birth certificates to bad credit, every moment of activity contributes to the construction of ones own data body. These bodies, separate from our physical bodies and infinitely more accessible, exist in a “data space” which, because it is inherently more complex than the visual, remains mostly invisible.

SUPER VISION makes that space visible. It will illustrate a multi-faceted, multi-layered narrative using the language and technologies of surveillance itself. The data in which every character is immersed both surrounds the story and serves as a “trail” through it.

SUPER VISION tells three stories drawn from the datasphere:
1. As he crosses successive borders, a solitary traveler gradually is forced to reveal all of his personal information, until his identity becomes transparent, with no part of his life left outside the bounds of dataveillance.
2. A young woman, addicted to the white noise of constant connection, maintains a long-distance relationship with her Grandmother. As she makes efforts to digitally archive her Grandmothers past, the grandmother slips into senility. The young woman is left to discover what remains of her Grandmothers life and her own outside the realm of data.
3. A father covertly exploits his young son’s personal data to meet the demands of the family’s lifestyle. This ploy escalates beyond the father’s control, until he is compelled to disappear. His wife and son are left with a starkly diminished data portrait, and his escape is shadowed by the long reach of the datasphere.

SUPER VISION combines cutting-edge digital animation, new video techniques, an architectural set, electronic music, and live performance. We will use computer animation not only to create an artificial ’space’ but also to overlay information and data onto the 3D world of the theater and create an immersive environment with which the performers will interact.

Please visit www.superv.org to view the SUPER VISION concept trailer and images.” - http://thebuildersassociation.org/flash/flash.html?homepage