{"id":1811,"date":"2013-10-25T18:57:38","date_gmt":"2013-10-25T17:57:38","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/digital-citizen.co.uk\/wordpress\/?p=1811"},"modified":"2022-05-30T08:45:08","modified_gmt":"2022-05-30T07:45:08","slug":"scan-be-afraid","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/digital-citizen.co.uk\/wordpress\/?p=1811","title":{"rendered":"Scan……be afraid"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>Identity, uncertainty and loss<\/strong> are explored in Scan through a combination of participation and projection.<\/p>\n

Scan combines live performance, physical exploration of an unfamiliar space (lots of climbing up and down unlit stairs), and culminates in a dystopian \u201creveal\u201d of surveillance footage, laser scanned images and movies. The culmination is delivered in a performance environment where the boundaries between performers, audience, technologists and observers are not so much blurred as destroyed.<\/p>\n

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Spot the scanner<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Before we got to the big technological reveal, we were \u2018rats in the maze\u2019 of the Royal Central School of Speech and Drama\u2019s building – on the roof terrace, in staircases, store-rooms, subterranean pipe-filled rooms where the lights were put out for reasons that became clear on IR camera feed later! The performers escorting added to the feeling of being unsettled; they moved smoothly from personae as guides and reassuring presences – to quite scary officials – providing contradictory information about whether we were being \u201cscanned\u201d or not; arguing with one another about what needed to happen next.<\/p>\n

\"IMG_9155\"<\/a> The performers’ use of voice was impressive and, to my mind added greatly to the tension as we moved toward the final scenes. And one of them, from being a smooth-talking charming guide suddenly became a half-naked experimental subject in a theatre filled with audio announcements from bored officials concerning missing persons.<\/p>\n

Some of the laser scanned images are of the participants\/audience\/experimental subjects shown in what I think of as \u201cnear realtime\u201d – by that I mean content made so freshly that the paint has not yet dried; and the people in the room gasp as their laser-scanned simulacra are shown on a massive screen in front of them. Unsettling. And very impressive; to incorporate movies generated from laser scanned content less than 45 minutes from the start of the performance. The approach raises the level of risk – spotting Will Trossell at the keyboard manipulating the images and calmly driving the other 3D scanned imagery was, of course, how this risk was handled.
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