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δISSOLUTION

δISSOLUTION is a high-tech dream within an analog nightmare. Through intense sensorial stimulation and radical haptic intimacy, the piece probes the relation of abjection, memory and care in times of climate catastrophe. Like a matryoshka, movement and space combine to open worlds inside worlds, where one’s own experience shifts between isolation and interdependence.

The dissolution room is one of the most precious and unknown places in the world of Humane Methods. It is were the Oracle lives, but no one knows whether it was forced, hidden or forgotten here. The Officiant serves the Oracle while frantically counting time and organizing space, for it is here that the archive of salvaged memories is held.

Entrance to the dissolution room – and thus to the ritual revelation held inside it – is granted only upon a complete eye scan and on condition that a private object is left inside the room. The eye scan is required by the AI construct <dmb>, a disfunctional artificial intelligence, to generate a customised audiovisual sensorial stimulation. The object shall be handed to the Officiant so it can expand the memories archive for future fruition.

The faceless Officiant commands newcomers into intimate relationships with eerie objects, sublow sounds and its own body. These materials – objects, vibrations and flesh – are the vehicles through which a memory may awake. It is a responsibility of the newcomers to release that memory from its material enclosure, to feed the Oracle and be fed by it.

The ritual may be distressing to some. The dark space is essentially a harbor of ill-fated impulses; this is where the too fast emotional detachments, the sparse acts of care and the madness of powerful masters long gone is archived into moulded objects. The dramatic weight of past experiences will be heavy on newcomers, but persistence will be rewarded.

Offensive acts towards the Oracle shall not be tolerated and acted thereupon by the Officiant without warning.

Format

Performance and Installation. For a group of 5-9 people with simultaneous one-on-one performances
Duration: multiple 1-hour slots, or durational form
Media: Found objects, water, artificial intelligence algorithms, interactive video, multi-channel sound diffusion, interactive light.

Credits

Concept: Margherita Pevere, Marco Donnarumma, Andrea Familari, Anna Cingi
Choreography and performance: Marco Donnarumma, Margherita Pevere
Direction: Fronte Vacuo (Pevere, Donnarumma, Familari)
Interactive light design: Andrea Familari
AI Music system and spatial sound design: Marco Donnarumma
Set design and costumes: Anna Cingi
AI computer vision system: Meredith Thomas
Artistic production Volkstheater Wien: Eva Luzia Preindl
Assistant to the directors: Katrina Buchberger
Live photography: Nikolaus Ostermann / Volkstheater Wien

A production by Fronte Vacuo, directed by Margherita Pevere.
Commissioned and co-produced by Volkstheater Wien.

Shows

  • World premiere, Volkstheater Wien
    8 shows. Vienna, AT, 2023
FRONTE VACUO Est. 2019-until the doom. | All media licensed under a CC BY-NC-SA 3.0 unless otherwise stated.