Audivisual experience

Experience is a programme of Maintenant dedicated to today’s digital creation as much as to early electronic experimentation and other inventive machinery. It’s a space for discovering experimental forms and a showcase for the avant-garde.

Second Self, Myriam Bleau & Nien-Tzu Weng

Multimedia art & dance | Electronic music | Interactive performance with touch-sensitive LED screens, Cyborg feminism

Second Self is an audiovisual performance and the first collaboration between Myriam Bleau and Nien-Tzu Weng. Combining dance and technology, they question our communication systems, online experiences and relationships with our digital double.

For this latest creation, which brings together movement, sound and video, the artists wear custom-made LED touch screens on their bodies, like small prostheses. They explore the interface as an extension of themselves, an instrument, a portal to the virtual world. The duo perform a show in which each gesture modifies the sounds and visuals, creating an interactive stage dialogue between technology and human expression.

The performance is a reference to the eponymous book by computer psychologist Sherry Turkle, who sees intelligent machines as reflections of ourselves. The omnipresent screens act as portals and mirrors, altering our image. Through different scenes, the artists explore the symbol of the mirror, social dynamics and the myth of Narcissus & Echo. In this ritual, they become in turn reflections, twins, shadows or machines.

DISTRIBUTION:

Myriam Bleau: Music, video, concept, performance
Nien Tzu Weng: Concept, performance
Max Damecour: Custom electronics, manufacturing
Marie-Audrey Jacques: Costumes
Mark Lowe: Fabrication

In partnership with Les Champs Libres.