Below is a description of a new performance project Tai Shani is doing at the Rio Cinema, Dalston on Saturday the 13th of March.

To get involved - email Tai Shani

She is looking for female performers, there will be 1 or 2 rehearsals (poss the 11th and/or 12th march TBC) + the performance on Saturday the 13th

...

...

The following proposal is for a live event created for a cinema space (The Rio in Dalston) which combines film and performance which is built around Fassbinder's sci-fi TV movie 'World on a Wire'.

Film background
'World on a Wire', originally aired in 1973, is a two part German made-for-TV science fiction film directed by Rainer Werner Fassbinder, based on the novel Simulacron Three by Daniel F. Galouye which is the first full length book to deal with the concept and implications of a computer generated simulated reality.

In an artificial world and in an artificial time there is a computer project called Simulacron that is able to simulate a full featured reality. Before his mysterious death project leader Henry Vollmer becomes aware that he is in fact part of and not in charge of a program that generates the reality he inhabits.

‘W.O.W. Noumenon Dilation: Reduced to 3’ is a live teleportation which delivers the film’s protagonist, Vollmer, into three ‘time machines’ displayed in front of the screen at the Rio cinema. The performance incorporates a remix of the film interspersed with CCTV footage from a parallel cinema where a screening of the original film is taking place and narration by a live Greek costumed chorus.

By creating a live but visually cinematic piece within a cinema the project intends to explore cinematic materiality and temporality, the relationship between the ‘real’ and the mediated/simulated particularly in regards to ever advancing technologies as well as being a study of narrative structure and an exploration of its limits. These themes are relevant, significant and timely in contemporary creative discourse, addressing them in an innovative live context offers an unusual approach and provokes new perspectives and readings.

The press and publicity for this event will play heavily upon the idea of a dimensional space-time shift phenomenon which will only occur at the unusual hour it’s presented; January 17th 2010 12:11am to be precise! The audience will be seated by costumed usherettes at 11:45pm.

Screening

LA based artist/filmmaker Damon Packard is remixing the 5 hour-long original teleplay into a 20 minute piece containing the essential scenes that explore the notion of simulated reality which will be screened during the performance. Packard will edit the piece superimposing his archetypal Hollywood language onto Fassbinder’s work, creating a visual dialogue between the mainstream and the art-house aesthetic.

The remix will cut to ‘supposedly’ real time CCTV footage of a parallel cinema where the original film is being screened and a singular ‘Vollmer’ initially materialises.

Performance

Using animation, CCTV footage and an invocation by the Greek Chorus, Vollmer teleports from the parallel cinema into the three time machines at the Rio Cinema. The three time machines are panelled in red, green or blue mirror. Vollmer manifests as three body doubles embodying three abstracts of cinematic fascination: the sexual/romantic, the violent and the self-reflexive accompanied by voiceovers that address these abstracts in fictional and theoretical texts. The cloned protagonist will also perform actions that illustrate these principles.

This piece continues a series of works that explore the fiction, it’s corruption of memory, the cinematic memory as well as the relationship between the ‘real’ and the mediated. In the past two years my practice has primarily been large-scale, cinematic, text based performances that contain science fiction themes, such as time travel and parallel universe realities.

...