Premiere: April 3rd 2006, Akademie der Künste Berlin

I, Myself And Me Again

Multimedia performance installation

Idea/Concept laborgras
Real-time Composition/Performers Renate Graziadei, David Hernandez & Romeo Runa
Visual Operator Arthur Stäldi
Music Ralf Krause
Technical Director Götz Dihlmann
Technician on Tour Joachim Hupfer
Program Design/Computer Art Frieder Weiss
Computer/Program set up on Tour Martin Bellardi

Costumes Margaretha Heller

Production Administration Gabi Beier

Management laborgras Inge Zysk

Victoria_Perez_Royo.pdf

Yvonne_Hardt_en.pdf

In the age of technical reproducibility, not only images, but life also is endlessly reproducible and shapeable, a consequence of the "essential uncertainty and ductile softness of the world". (Kunstforum, 2001; Zitat Baumann 1999)

The concept of the performance I, myself and me again is a blending of real and virtual meeting rooms in a performance/installation context. The dancer, closed off from the virtual realm, encounters himself through the duplication of his own image from different perspectives and must continually contend with his virtual self and his own thereby constantly changing realities. The dancer composes his personal experience throughout the performance, which will continue to update itself like a living diary. Everything that happens is documented and leaves traces. I dance and see, continue to reflect and dance at the same time; a continuous process of reaction and rearranging. I let myself and my constantly changing environment surprise me. The unexpected is awaiting me. For the dancer as well as the audience, a smooth transition emerges between the existing real and virtual realities.

I, Myself and Me Again is a LaborGras production in cooperation with the Akademie der Künste Berlin and the Trans-Media-Akademie Hellerau e.V. Sponsored with funds from the Hauptstadtkulturfonds Berlin.

Premiered in the framework of the “Choreography and film” projects in collaboration with the Akademie der Künste and the Freien Universität Berlin in April 2006.

I, Myself And Me Again...

...is a playing field in which the dancer, through his living presence and the element of video and electronic media, will be present in real-time concurrently in both worlds and in multiple modified forms.
 
During the performance, this playing field will become an interactive communications space, from which the dancer will simultaneously meet and engage with his multiple selves.

Through his living presence, the dancer creates his personal environment in real as well as in virtual space. Thus the time-warp experience of past, present and future will differ from that of a conventional dance performance by progressing not linearly, but laterally, colliding erratically with one another.

The conjunction of the two spheres produces a shift in the perception of the individual person in the virtual space and therefore affects in turn the decision of the dancer in reality.

Each decision that the dancer makes can then be manipulated or changed in turn through collectively developed parameters from the rehearsal process activated either manually from a computer, through light changes, music, or through certain movements of the dancer.
 
Therefore all of the project’s participating artists create a sensible communication with one another and continuously layer “meetings” in real-time of the dancer with himself and with multiple personalities of himself.

That is, during the performance, constantly new situations and images will be created in real-time.

The meeting rooms manifest themselves through the dialogue between the real dancer and the virtually reproduced images of himself. The composition of its entirely specific experience begins.
 
The audience may move freely through the performance installation. They do not observe the performance as usual, separated from one another and seated in chair in an auditorium. Rather, they are constantly experiencing the dancer’s world and thereby receive their own entirely personal understanding of its world of feelings and perceptions.

The audience will therefore be asked to step out of the traditional role of passive observer. By their proximity to the event, they become a part of the performance space and therefore a part of the performance. The goal is to create sensuous, tangible meeting rooms which envelope the audience so that their body and spirit become integrated elements of the performance.

Because each performance installation is open to the public from around four to six hours, there will be three dancers who will alternately participate in the interactive playing field in approx. 40 minute sections. The audience will therefore experience three different aesthetic interpretations and perceptions.