Three handles appear in a chatroom, they’re anonymous, they’re anybody, everybody, they’re angels, demons, they’re hermaphrodites, they’re making a new kind of love mailing valentines into the void.
Three performers cruise the web, crashing chatrooms, flipping identities, spinning yarns, beguiling, ensnaring unsuspecting novices, seducing each other, pushing imagination beyond the tech spec.
No flesh given, no harm done.
Made as a collaboration with the band Angel Tech, film-maker Lucy Baldwyn and new-media artist Nicholas Watton, the show continued our exploration of cyberlove by turning the online into the actual: we physicalized a sex chatroom in the performance space. In this way, we investigated the shifts in contemporary identity construction: how new desires and moods of love emerge from the irresponsibilities of sex without bodies. Partly made in Chicago and the UK, the work developed into a series of linked outputs – a radio broadcast, installation,lectures, web and performance eventsacross the UK and internationally in Brisbane, Chicago, Victoria (Canada) & Singapore – thus pushing the boundaries of what constituted performance, and demonstrating how different media could dialogue with one another to produce an expanded work.
TIM ATACK sound, LUCY BALDWYN video, DOUG BOTT sound, POLLY FRAME performer, SARA GIDDENS choreography, NEIL JOHNSON sound, SIMON JONES text/direction, GRAEME ROSE performer, KAYLENE TAN performer, NICHOLAS WATTON new media
On video: MARK BOOTH, BEN CLOUGH, STEPHEN FIEHN, STACY GOLDATE, OLEN HSU, MALIN LINDELOW, TYLER MYERS, ETHAN ROEDER, HAMZA WALKER, CHRISTOPHER & RIA
With: EDWARD DIMSDALE photography, JULIAN HANBY graphic design
And additional text by:Mark Booth, Stacy Goldate, Olen Hsu, Ethan Roeder, Hamza Walker
Performed at: Arnolfini (Bristol), BAC (London), Colchester Arts, Crewe & Alsager Arts, ICA (London), Hoxton Hall (London), Now Festival/Bonington Gallery (Nottingham), Wickham Theatre (Bristol), School of the Art Institute of Chicago (USA), Year of Living Digitally Festival (Singapore), Speculate & Innovate (QUT, Brisbane), Collision Interarts (Victoria, Canada).