RemoteLab 2.0
February 26, 2021
7:00pm MST
Join us for the second installment of RemoteLab - the Playground’s newest commissioning initiative!
Five composers from around the world have created musical and multimedia works designed specifically for the features and limitations of online conferencing platforms.
Playground musicians will perform synchronously from various locations, and watchers will actively participate in the creative process by making live, real-time contributions that inform the final musical product.
To experience the full, multimedia effect of RemoteLab 2.0, audience members must…
FIRST open Zoom from their computers,
ensure they are logged in,
THEN join the webinar to establish side-by-side viewing.
THE PROGRAM
#scorona miniatures by Florijan Lörnitzo
Db Infektion
D# Tanz
Respiritual
“A while ago, I started a series of graphic miniatures for open ensemble. These "#scorona miniatures" focus on the current pandemic, but especially on the various and often pretty simple ways in which we all can help fighting it. Since the lockdown situation in my country forced my colleagues and me to only communicate online, I thought it might be nice to have some small pieces that cold be played remotely. So when writing the miniatures, I tried to include the difficulty of playing together via online platforms and to play with the resulting latency, the impossibility of giving exact cues and keeping a pulse. Furthermore, the miniatures were a wonderful opportunity to work with performative elements as well as to further explore the world of graphic notation.” - Florijan
Lullaby for Stepanakert by Joseph Bohigian
Stepanakert is the capital of Artsakh, an unrecognized republic between Armenia and Azerbaijan. The native Armenian inhabitants fought a war for their independence in the early 1990s and since 1994, the region has been governed by Armenians. However, on September 27, 2020, Azerbaijan and Turkey launched a full-scale war on Artsakh. For weeks, civilians faced daily shelling from Azerbaijan, causing over half the population to flee and the rest to shelter in bunkers. The piece begins with the sounds of cluster munitions falling on a street in Stepanakert on October 4, 2020. From the explosions emerges a reinterpretation of an oror (Armenian lullaby).
What I’m trying to tell you by Silen Wellington
What are you afraid to say out loud? What words get stuck behind your teeth or in a lump in your throat? When do you notice yourself withdraw? When are you not being vulnerable, or when do you feel like you can’t be vulnerable? How are you, really?
“What I’m trying to tell you” explores the difficulty of emotional vulnerability in online spaces. Throughout the piece, performers play with inner & outer expressions, overlapping and interrupting each other. Gradually, the performers begin to speak, giving voice to what we are afraid to say out loud.
Throughout the piece, audience members are invited to submit their responses to the question, What are you afraid to say out loud? Responses can be submitted to the performers directly (not viewed by the rest of the audience), and performers will read those responses as part of the music.
Dreamscape #1 by Conrad Kehn
“Dreamscape 1 is a dystopian multimedia work based on a dream I had a few years ago. Rarely do I remember my dreams with such clarity, but this one stayed with me, and was interesting enough that I immediately wrote it down. When the pandemic hit and we moved to Zoom life I spent a day getting familiar with the features I would need for teaching the next week. I realized that if you made Zoom believe that the ‘green screen’ color was that of your skin, you could map images onto your body. Misusing existing tools to create new sound, and art, has always been a fascination and I knew that I would be using this ‘feature’ in future work. RemoteLab has provided the perfect space for it. I don’t know why I was dreaming of inflatable nuclear weapons but what stayed with me most was the serenity around the transition to whatever is next.” - Conrad
STAY; ho(me) - An XR Installation by Brian Ellis
“STAY; ho(me) is a mixed reality web-based installation that provides audience members a small personal space in which to reflect and recuperate. While this piece is latent with the scars of the pandemic, this backdrop is a setting rather than a focal point. This work aims to explore themes of self-worth, motivation, connection, individual choice, and self-determination; all issues, I think we can agree, predate March 2020. It is my hope that by spending a bit of time in this experience, you might find new context and new comfort within which to situate your current reality, whatever that may be. ~ Wishing you the best, Brian.”