Visual

"40 years of ... chat-rooms, and ... blogs ... the internet is an extraordinary & revolutionary step in Human communications... " (Eales, about the internet, on Facebook)

Partly inspired by this comment, I wondered if it would be possible to have some kind of live stream of blogs somewhere within the staging/set of W@KTM. I wondered how fast the stream could/should be - i.e. how fast could the audience read? Would they need to be able to read the actual words or would it be sufficient for them simply to be able to recognise that it was a blog-stream? If we used actual blogs, we would need to get permission from authors/publishers to use their content.

"I must say, I love the idea of the audience being able to "text" or "email" things during the play, which would appear on screens and images as part of the set... But, this would need to be monitored/screened to prevent profanity (or undue criticism of the emotionally vulnerable author of the book!).... Perhaps someone backstage could receive and then check the messages, and include the better ones within the screens/imagery.... It does leave open the danger that everyone will be on their phones rather than watching the play, so perhaps this "interactive" function should only be made available to the audience at certain (appropriate) times....?" (Eales)

I also wondered how we might suggest that a scene was a flashback; lighting, film, different part of the stage.

Some general models for me personally are;

Warhorse (‘puppet’ horse = real horse), ‘EGBDF’ (play/concert, VERY simple design)
Queen/Ben Elton - We Will Rock You – (musical / film - story based around existing songs)
Adams/Goodman – Dr Atomic – opera/lighting/sound FX/real film footage
Reich/Korot – 3 Tales – film opera/doc/talking heads/real footage
Blue Man Group (London) - music/theatre/design/colour/comedy
Glass - Satyragaha (at ENO in London)

In terms of visual language, from my own point of view, the Glass/Regio ‘Qatsi collaborations have had a big impact. They are audio visual tone poems without spoken dialogue ‘about’ the present, the impact of humans on the planet, the dependence on technology. Although I had come to know the music for Koyaanisqatsi (c1975) on CD, experiencing a cinema screening of the film at Glasgow’s Film Theatre in 2002 (in the presence of Glass) had a big impact. Powaqqatsi also had an affect on me – first through learning the music on LP then watching the film on DVD.

Koyaanisqatsi; “contrasts the tranquil beauty of nature with the frenzied hum of contemporary society”
Powaqqatsi; “calls into question everything we think we know about contemporary society”
Naqoyqatsi; chronicles “the shift from a world organised by the principles of nature to one dominated by technology, the synthetic and the virtual”

Computer Games

Earthrise; 3rd world war, technology, immortality, "each individual’s consciousness is stored in a data vault, ready to be uploaded into a cloned body as necessary",

Virtual Worlds

SecondLife - "a 3D virtual world where users can socialize, customize an avatar, connect and create using free voice and text chat."

Films

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