Remnants: Choreography in A.R. (Pt 2)
In the early days of the pandemic…
BODYART began researching virtual and augmented reality programs. As our connection to one another moved beyond the physical and into the digital, we found ourselves itching to explore how art could respond. What came about was the beginning of a new phase for BODYART, one that challenges our current definitions of storytelling and audience.
BODYART is currently developing Remnants, a digital experience that uses an AR (augmented reality) app for storytelling to reframe the user’s home as a site for interrogating our relationship to ephemerality and preservation, accumulation, and loss, and our beautiful but futile battle with time. Remnants deploys the technology available through smartphones to turn the user’s living space into a virtual world filled with images, sounds, and text that reexamine how we experience time.
On February 1st, 2021 Managing Director, Megan Lewicki, and Artistic Director of BODYART, Leslie Scott, recorded a conversation over Zoom about this next phase in BODYART’s trajectory, the future of performance, and the impact of COVID-19 on our relationship to time.
Below is Part 2 of that discussion. Read Part 1
Megan Lewicki I think there's value in arts organizations engaging in storytelling in the digital space in this way. I just had a discussion with a friend about the differences of how people are being raised in the pandemic. The elementary aged kids who are in school now, are having a difficult time shifting into the digital space full time. And some are still being told by adults that this is all temporary, that things are going to go back to “normal.” They and the adults in their lives have a somewhat shared definition of what "normal" means.
Whereas the babies born between lockdown and now will have a very different idea of “normal.” The quarantine babies--which I hate that's what they're being called but it does describe their overarching difference from other generations or age groups--have had little to no interaction with other people in the physical world. And this, in their infancy before the age of two, is when they determine and define things of value, things that feel safe, things that provide comfort, and the things that cause stress, the things to avoid. And a lot of stressors, during a pandemic, involve the physical world, involve in-person interactions.
There are these funny videos going around the internet of quarantine babies who have only been around their parents, and anytime they see another person outside of the home they just freeze in wonder or curiosity or confusion. It's extremely cute but also very overwhelming. And there's a lot of anxiety about what this means. I think we're going to reach a point where more and more audiences are going to appreciate digital performance over live performance. I don't know if we're ever going to get to the place where we're going to really, really want to be in close contact with a lot of people in one space. And that's not to say it's less valuable. That generation, the quarantine baby group, will eventually be the ones that determine the world we live in. And based on how they grew up, they might find the digital space to have more value than the physical space. And I think engaging in storytelling through means of digital platforms, like AR or VR, is going to be the future. You are going to have performance companies shift beyond YouTube or recorded live performances. They are going to need to evolve.
Leslie Scott Yes, moving beyond recorded performance as the entryway into digital art. When I think about being a passive observer in a theater space, I think there is a reciprocity there. There's an energy, there's a sharing. But me sitting alone in front of Netflix, that's not reciprocity. So how does a recorded performance make it any different?
But with AR, this space is asking you to make choices actively in the way that you would in the physical space. Because it is still a physical space. It's a merging of the physical with the digital. Because otherwise, why wouldn't we just make a film? We're asking you to make active choices, because we're taking away that live component with sounds and smells and the exchange of energy. We’re replacing it with agency and choice and freewill and your own space and desire. But you're right. Let's say everybody has a vaccine, and we're all cleared to go into the theater...I don't know that people are going to just flip a switch.
Megan And who's to say this is going to be the last pandemic? It's certainly not the last world shifting thing that the generation after us is going to have to deal with. And knowing what I know about infancy development, the pandemic will shape their personalities in some ways. Between the ages of 0-4 is when things get cemented. Their environments carve out how they see themselves and how they see the world. After 4, it's all kinds of reiterations of the same personality traits that were defined before then. I’m not by any means an expert in this, I’m just speaking from experience of nannying infants and young children for so long.
But here we are, heading into the second year of Covid-19, and a lot of the kids who were born as soon as the shutdown happened, they're going to have very different values. They're going to value different experiences. The experiences that we (adults) long for, and that we are nostalgic for (like live theater, or live spaces or in person experiences, whatever), are not going to be the same for the next generation. They are going to create new technologies, new digital spaces that cater to that kind of visceral exchange that we get from in person performance. I think they're going to be able to create that digitally in some kind of way with technology that doesn't exist yet. That's my prediction anyway.
Leslie Yeah, I mean, already my students, the freshmen class, I see a hesitancy in physical intimacy and touch. They're not touching each other. And this is before the pandemic. They don't want to look up from their phone. They will have conversations for hours on their phone, and then you see them in person, and it seems like they are unsure of how to have in-person conversations. And these are full, grown teenagers before the pandemic. So, you take that generation and then add this quarantine generation and it's a whole new thing.
Megan Yeah. It's going to be different. So, I think AR is a really interesting place for performing arts. Because--I know you don't want to condemn zoom plays, (Leslie laughs) but I do. I just don't see companies even using Zoom as a new medium. I see them using it like a camera, just a means to film themselves performing. There's no difference if you point your camera at yourself. Whereas--
Leslie I did see a company create a digital Frankenstein in Zoom. A mismatched person with different body parts...Like this box was a right arm and this box was a left arm in this box was a leg. It was interesting!
Megan Right. I think I see performance companies using it more as an aesthetic device, as opposed to an actual medium to explore.
Leslie I feel like dance is able to be nimbler than a lot of other performing arts. I think that there's just enough space for us to figure out what this looks like. And we don't have the same constraints as other performing arts.
Megan Yeah, theater on film already exists. It's called a movie.
Leslie Yeah.
Megan Now when people record a theater show, and they show me the audience responding to the liveness of that experience, I don't consider that movie or film. I consider that documentation of an event. I am so glad that they did that for Hamilton. And they put it on Disney plus, so that I could watch Hamilton for a fraction of the cost because truly, that show wasn't accessible after it blew up, and it became so expensive. And there was no way I even had the time to participate in the low-cost ticket lottery. Because even time is a resource that isn't equitable for everyone. But when I realized I could see Hamilton on Broadway from my living room during the Pandemic, I was like, "Oh my god, I am so grateful for this!”
But at no point did I consider the act of recording a live theatre show to be an innovative or an evolution of the medium of theatre. The purpose of recording Hamilton on Broadway was to increase accessibility. It's not a new thing to record live theatre, I think it's an important thing! But not a new thing.
Leslie Agreed. I think evolution requires challenge and risk. And taking dance into the AR space feels risky. And that's an exciting place to be.
Beta launch for Remnants is coming Fall 2021. Wanna know more? Stay up to date here.
How has the pandemic influenced your relationship with time and space? Does 2020 feel like one big blur? Or drawn out and detailed? How does time influence your reality? We want to hear from you! Let us know in the comments below.