From one thing to the next

Oh, I've been meaning to write here for a while now. I got so caught up with making the show last summer that I never had time to write about it.

As I wrote a couple of posts ago, I ended up going with the idea that it was more of an "event" than a play. So we spent considerable energy framing it that way on social media, and I had some friends that helped out with the pre-show. So that was fun.

The venue didn't have wi-fi, so we weren't able to actually do a webinar, but we just presented it as if there was a webinar happening. We had the CEO come out and give his speech, using projections to encourage the audience to applaud at appropriate times (we also had audience plants). We showed some commercials and then eventually the CEO gets hacked. A new CEO takes charge and the event continues.

Most of the piece ended up being straightforward, with the hacking parts moving into abstraction, but there were a couple of other moments too that acted as interruptions, where it wasn't so much a straight plotline but a more slanted way of presenting the material through movement and projections. I was really happy with the final result, but unfortunately I forgot to make a video of the performance. I think Jaime did take video, but I'm not sure when I'll be able to get a copy.

Right now I'm getting ready to do a little piece for Ritz Monday Live Arts in February. I was freaking out about it a little bit because I didn't have an idea, and I was reluctant to visit GoodLife Pharmacomm just because half my cast don't live in town and also I didn't really want to deal with projections.

Yesterday, I came up with the idea of doing a piece about pleasure. That's pretty much all I have right now- just a concept. I have it in my head I'd like to use bubble wrap, but I don't know if that's too cliche. I'm also hoping to draw from Michele Foucault's The Use of Pleasure. I can't find my copy, unfortunately. I know I've bought that book at least twice. Oh well, library ho.

Mindlinking Movement

Things are coming along. Hector has been helping with the logo- looks pretty- no? We keep going back and forth about the exact name of the corporation. First it was Good Life Corporation, then it was Good Life Pharmacom, then it was Good Life Pharmercom, and now it's Goodlife Pharmacomm (GP for short). Of course, there already is a business that uses GP for short, but whatever. It's just a play. Plus, I like that it's also the acronym for General Practitioner. 

One thing I'm really worried about is the projections. Well, not the projections themselves- my commercials are coming along really well- I've made three so far. But the technical aspects of making sure they work and everything causes me anxiety. Hector designed me a screen frame, but I need someone to build it. And of course I have zero budget. 

The script is still in process, but it's coming along. Sometimes I wish I was funnier and more eloquent than I am. But I seem to be happier with each subsequent draft, so that's good. 

The last two rehearsals we've dealt a lot of movement stuff. So, in the play, as I've mentioned in previous posts, the set up is that it's a reception and webinar. The feeling should be glossy and clean- precise and slick. Then, there are certain points of interruption (Thanks Jeremey Catterton for your influence!) The interruption happens when the CEO and assistant CEO are hacked, and also there are a couple of other points- where there's a silly repetitive thing going on as the "presented" space, and movers come in and show, abstractly, what is actually happening inside the brain through movement. 

We tried this in several ways last week, but what I liked the best was when Rakel was cheerfully reciting a little chant about mindlinking while I came in, mirroring some of her movements and sort of embodying what happens when you are being inundated with all these commercial images. Jeff was reading the text as voiceover, which I really liked, and so hopefully Dixie can help me develop a soundscape that gets at that feeling, similar to what we were doing with the starvation play. 

Last night, Rakel, May, Romina and I met at Romina's house and had a really great rehearsal. Romina had posted on our facebook group some videos of people with different movement disorders, which was an interesting entry point into what happens to people when they are mind linked. We had a discussion about developing the movement vocabulary for both when people get hacked and also when things go haywire- which was in the script at one point and I want to put it back in. The hacking is still there, but I might want to put in there sort of the "side-effects" to the technology- like maybe at some point your basic functioning capabilities begin to break down. 

We did some brainstorming and freewriting about 2 questions. The first was a time in our lives when we felt frustrated that we couldn't get something that we wanted, and the second was when we felt we were right about something, though everyone else thought we were wrong (similar to the plight of a whistleblower).  When we were done freewriting, we did authentic movement, while our partner read what we wrote and we improvised movements. 

Some great stuff came out of the exercise. Both May and Romina found movments of touching the bottom of their neck- top of their chest- almost as if they were choking, and Rakel's found some interesting movements where she was completely crouched over. We developed a sequence of movements for when someone gets hacked. Basically, it's like there's a sharp pain in the person's chest, which leads up to the neck, almost as if they are choking. Then, the energy shots upwards, through the hands, and then the person collapses over, coming up a a hacked person. 

So, we've got one small movement, and I'm pretty happy with it. Now to figure out the rest of the play! I'm excited to really try to figure out the hacking moments, but I also need to work on the text. Ah! Anxiety. I'm so happy I have such talented people involved. 

Good Life Pharmercom

All right, the piece I'm working on is quite a bit different now than when I was originally thinking about it. I still have some of the same characters- the CEO, the journalist, etc.. but now it's not even really a play.

The way I'm thinking about it is more of an "event". We advertise it as a product launch, and a merger of two companies- The Good Life Corporation and Pharmercom. They have several new products that they are premiering for the audience.

Several weeks before, we'll launch the Facebook page and Twitter about the "event". I have this dream of starting a kickstarter for some ridiculous amount- like 10 billion dollars. It's not for the play, but for the corporation, just asking for free money.

When the audience arrives, there will be a pre-show kind of thing at the beginning. People will be able to take their picture in front of the logo, and will be encouraged to tweet and post on Facebook. Hopefully we'll have food and snacks. I think it would be nice to have some journalists around asking audience members how excited they are about the new product launch, and if they have any guesses about what the CEO will say at the webinar. Today I watched one of Steve Jobs's conferences for inspiration.

So when it actually starts, the CEO will tell them about the merger and one of the new projects. I'm hoping to be able to get a projector on loan from my boyfriend, so we can do video with graphics and possibly a live feed. We can have graphs and images and possibly interview people "on the street".

There are several products I'm thinking about. One is a technology called "mindlink" which is inserted into people's brains. It's like a phone- it can connect to the internet, send messages, display video, but it's controlled inside the brain through prompts from head movement. Now, I realize the idea of mind control is not a new idea. There are a number of examples in Science Fiction where this happens, but I'm okay with that. It's part of a genre- or that's what I'm telling myself.

Another product is a drug that you take that protects you from the sun, because of course this is the future, and the atmosphere has been completely worn down. I also think there should be a drug that helps with breathing, because the toxic fumes in the air make it very difficult.

So the webinar is happening, and we see commercials and interviews and other stuff like that. Of course, things go terribly wrong. The CEO get hacked - hijacked really, by a hacktivist who takes control of his body. The CEO gets replaced by another CEO, and the webinar continues until the second CEO gets hacked as well.

Eventually, we see elements of a police state emerge, and the audience watches the manhunt for the hacktivist on TV. It ends with the audience being told they cannot leave because of the lockdown.

That's it. For now, at least.

Poem

This has nothing to do with the current project. This is a poem I wrote in response to Robert Karimi's status on Facebook asking for a poem about Liberace, mermaids and banana stands.

It's dedicated to my friends Joan and Allison and Tom:

We laughed. We couldn’t hear it very well.

The movie, at a hotel bar.

The one about Liberace. With Matt Damon, though he was too old for the part of the guy who’s in jail now. Sad.

But we screeched hysterically anyway.

Until one of us,

Not me.

Said. Stop.

This is incredibly sad.

We kept drinking. Even as the other customers complained

And we moved to the next bar and the next.

Like mermaids on the streets of Minneapolis.

Until I couldn’t drink anymore.

And filled up with nachos at Little Tijuanas

And talked to some guy and then some girl

And took pictures

And there were some youtube videos I think.

Screaming with laughter. Barely able to stand.

She’s bananas, my friend.

Just bananas. 

Facebook Inspiration

I got inspired from watching ads for the Facebook phone today, and "wrote", well "stole" two commercials for the phone that is wired into the peoples' brains. Here's the first one:

 The text: We carry our phones where we go. They’re with us almost every second of the day. We reach for them when we have a free moment, or we’re curious. More than anything, we use our phones to connect to people we care about. This is Facebook home. From the moment you turn on your phone, you see what friends are sharing, your latest messages calls and updates, are right up front, and you can keep chatting from any app, so matter what you’re doing, your friend are always right there with you. Home: A whole new experience for you phone.


 And my version: We carry our phones where we go. They’re with us almost every second of the day. We reach for them when we have a free moment, or we’re curious. More than anything, we use our phones to connect to people we care about. This is Facebook home. From the moment you turn on your phone, you see what friends are sharing, your latest messages calls and updates, are right up front, and you can keep chatting from any app, so matter what you’re doing, your friend are always right there with you. Home: A whole new experience for you phone.


 And number 2:

 

 Chairs. Chairs are made so that people can sit down and take a break. Anyone can sit on a chair, and if the chair is large enough, the can sit down together, and tell jokes or make up stories, or just listen. Chairs are for people. And that is why chairs are like Facebook. Doorbells, airplanes, bridges… these are things people use to get together, so they can open up and connect about ideas, and music and other things that people share. Dance floors. Basketball. A great nations. A great nation is something people build, so they can have a place where they belong. The universe. It is vast and dark, and makes us wonder if we are alone. So maybe the reason we make all of these things is to remind ourselves that we are not.

 And my version, which is exactly the same, except one substitution (the material is that good!)

Chairs. Chairs are made so that people can sit down and take a break. Anyone can sit on a chair, and if the chair is large enough, the can sit down together, and tell jokes or make up stories, or just listen. Chairs are for people. And that is why chairs are like the Good Life Corporation. Doorbells, airplanes, bridges… these are things people use to get together, so they can open up and connect about ideas, and music and other things that people share. Dance floors. Basketball. A great nations. A great nation is something people build, so they can have a place where they belong. The universe. It is vast and dark, and makes us wonder if we are alone. So maybe the reason we make all of these things is to remind ourselves that we are not.

Thank you for Not Smoking

Per Lisa's suggestion, I checked out Thank You for Smoking. Well, unfortunately, it wasn't on Netflix or Hulu, so I had to watch just clips of it on Netflix. The reason I like this as source material for the work is that it gets at the kind of backwards logic that I'd like to explore coming from Good Life Corporation. One particular passage comes in a scene between Aaron Eckhart and his son. He takes his son (who lives with his mom) on a trip to California and explains to him about his job a lobbyist for the cigarette industry. As an example, he says they should have an argument about vanilla ice cream vs. chocolate ice cream. The son tries to find arguments about why chocolate is better, but Eckhart says that both flavors are good, and people should have the freedom to choose whichever they feel like on a particular day. "But you didn't convince me," the son says. "I didn't have to," says the dad. "I proved that you're wrong and I'm write." This totally reminds me of the conversation that I had with Ricardo about people like Katherine Kersten and Rush Limbaugh, who seemingly contradictory arguments are actually not contradictory at all - they are all about destroying the enemy at all costs. Here's the clip- it also has a great scene with Rob Lowe at the Hollywood empire: Here's the main character arguing his case in front of the Senate Committee. It made me think about the NRA lobby:

Tyranny of Corporate Media

We had a productive meeting this morning at Seward Cafe with Lisa, Rakel and myself. At 8 a.m. no less! I shared with the group my thoughts so far- about Aaron Swartz, about access to information, about what the future looks like. Lisa asked me: What do you want the play to be about? Harder to answer than I realized! I said when I was first thinking about this play, about a year ago, it was this idea of net neutrality. But then when I started talking about it, I realized I don't exactly have a firm grasp of what net neutrality is! And then I started talking about the SOPA/PIPA stuff that was going on as I've been talking about this piece. I told her about my idea of how in the future, everyone is connected through their brains- somehow wired to link them to the web. Lisa, wisely, said that perhaps I need to focus more. And I realize that I'm getting too wrapped up in plot. I need to take a step back. Anyway- I'm just going to copy some of the notes that Lisa took: Brainstorm List One The Tyranny of Corporate Media- What is it about? Corporatization of Media? Access to Information? Copyright? Fair Use? What the public wants vs. what is in the public interest? Corporate control of content? Pip Sopa/Net neutrality What do you want to take away from this? (we discussed that I'm more interested in raising questions than "explaining" or "teaching") The idea of corporations are people- what is the nth degree of that? Brainstorm List 2 What does the future look like? Darm basements no museums or libraries. No information sources think tweeting media/tech connection the environment is destroyed. one one percent of people are educated 99 percent of schools to be workers for products branding is everywhere entertainment is huge everyone lives in high rise apartments there are no cars b/c we've run out of gas the currency is the data in the interests of corporations There's no freedom of speech. And finally, these guiding questions: What can "we" the corporation do to make "you" (the audience) consume and produce media in our interest? How can we write your life. So! It's all still in brainstorming stages. Stay tuned. Lisa suggests the following source material: "White Noise" by Don Delilo The film "Thank You for Not Smoking" "Back to the Future, Part II"

Dystopia Play, thinking about Aaron Swartz

Benn thinking more about Aaron Swartz, and did a lot of reading last night. Incredibly intriguing story, especially about how his girlfriend at the time accidentally told the prosecutors about his Guerilla Open Access Manifesto (which was actually on his blog- weird they had never read it). Also, a very good piece in The New Yorker about how he had actually moved on from the idea of Open Access, so it's unclear what he actually planned to do with the downloaded articles. She really drives the point home that he really had some mental/emotional problems that were underlying causes of his suicide. The Open Access Manifesto is a great piece of writing, and I'm thinking about drawing from it for this theater piece I'm creating, as well as this idea of the martyr who fights against the system (even if it's arguable whether Swartz was really a martyr.) The good thing about making a play that's a dystopia, in the future, is that you don't have to be limited by "facts", but rather you're just exploring the idea of something, carried out to the nth degree. I'm interested in looking at this idea that we don't actually know the information- whatever it is- be it news, science, thought- because it's not available to us, and in my dystopia, people are so caught up with the vapid cultural spew that gets fed to them, they don't know what they are missing. I think of an Aaron Swartz type character who tries to call out against this, but is ultimately killed. Maybe it's made to look like a suicide. Of course than I just get all wrapped up into narrative again. Always narrative! I'm so tied to story. It's hard to loose myself from its clutches. Anyway, here are some of the things I was reading: Aaron Swartz's Guerilla Open Access Manifesto: http://archive.org/stream/GuerillaOpenAccessManifesto/Goamjuly2008_djvu.txt Article by Quinn Norton, Aaron Swartz's partner: http://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2013/03/life-inside-the-aaron-swartz-investigation/273654/ New Yorker piece: http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2013/03/11/130311fa_fact_macfarquhar?currentPage=2 And I want to check out this film: The documentary: Shadows of Liberty. I believe it's being played on Direct TV on June 21 on channel 375 at 5 p.m?: http://shadowsofliberty.org/the-film/ Also news, I talked to Maggie about maybe being a part of this. So if she joins, we have Rakel, Maggie, Romina and May, though Romina can't actually be in it. Need some more people, especially guys, I think.

Oh. Hi There.

Why hello blog. It's been a while. I think I'm going to begin writing here again about my current project. I'm creating a piece, and would like to blog about the process. It' sad to think the last time I wrote here was nearly three years ago. I've been doing theater pretty regularly since then, but never my own work. I've also been steadily writing more journalism type stuff. And I did a research project about Minnesota theater history, and some other stuff. The project I'm going to be working on is a dystopia. It' a world where all the information is controlled by a large corporation. Today I had my first brainstorming session with my friend Rakel. We kind of hammered out my ideas for characters and a skeleton of a plot. Here are the characters so far: Paige: sort of the central character Thomas: An anarchist- type. He tells Paige the truth about the corporation. He is murdered- but it's made to look like a suicide. Sally: A reporter. Tired of endlessly only reporting about celebrity gossip and trivial news, she follows her hunch about the murdered activist. Melody: A columnist/policy wonk. A mastermind of manipulating thought. One Percent: I don't have a name for him yet. Possibly Paige's friends, and maybe a jailor. Of course, I only have a cast of three currently, so I'm either going to need to cut down the cast list, have actors play multiple roles, or make some new friends quickly who can help me with this. What we talked about today is that it's the future, and everyone is constantly connected to the internet, except not through any device but rather, their brains are just automatically connected. All they have to do is think- or maybe tilt their head or give audible commands to weave through the internet. There's a relationship between Thomas and Paige. Thomas tries to convince her about the corporation. He takes her to an abandoned science museum. He says something- something controversial, and either Paige or one of her friends "report him" by making a status update about it. Because of what he has said, he is killed- because he's a "scarerist". When Paige tries to find out about him, she's labeled as a scarerist too, and put in a prison. There's a confrontation scene between Sally and One Percent. I imagine Melody only speaks in isolated monologues, directly addressed to the audience. That's all i have right now. It's a bit narrative-heavy I realize. I'm hoping that my other collaborators can help me tease out the movement/abstract elements, and I want to draw from news sources and also dystopian texts such as 1984. I'm excited.