EVERYTHING HAS DISAPPEARED
The Project
A piece of social science fiction, this project is set in a world where a mysterious supernatural event has caused every single Filipino person across the world to suddenly vanish. At its essence it’s a story about migrant labour and the short and long-term consequences of the disappearance of this crucial globalized workforce.
Artists
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Hazel Venzon is a theatre artist: an actress, social-performance artist, writer, director and producer. Her artistic background is rooted in sculpture and performance art (University of Manitoba's School of Fine Art) and formal acting training (Studio 58).Hazel has been a national theatre artist for over 20 years. Her work as an actress and social-performance artist has been presented in Toronto, Montreal, Vancouver, Victoria, Whitehorse and Winnipeg. She has produced for festivals such as PuSh, Luminato and Magnetic North Theatre Festival. She was recently the Artistic Associate at Prairie Theatre Exchange, and is now the Central Operative for Mammalian Diving Reflex and the Co-Artistic Director for UNIT Productions. She continues to explore the definition of theatre and performance through social engagement, crossing through multiple disciplines; focused on the investigation of Canadian identity.
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With a multi-faceted and distinct style, jaymez has worked in the visual art, dance, theatre and music communities. His designs have appeared in a number of international festivals, theatrical and dance productions and he has created lighting, video and sound designs for a range of companies, choreographers and musicians. His work has garnered him two Winnipeg Theatre Awards for outstanding design. He is also a member and sits on the board of directors of IATSE Local ADC 659.
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Winnipeg based artist, born and raised in Metro Manila Philippines, who migrated to Winnipeg at the age of seventeen. Digital Designer, graphic artist, painter, illustrator, and animator. Owner/Artistic Director at Studio sarisari, and samurai at Raging Ape Prints. Former Freelance Concept Artist at Think Shift and Electric Monk Media, and former Samurai 1st Class and Lead Concept Artist at Complex Games Inc.
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James Thurmeier is a Production Manager and Technical Director specializing in theatre and dance. He has a keen interest in combining new technology with traditional staging practices and relishes the opportunity to steward new productions from conception to fruition. Previously, James held the title of Technical and Lighting Director of Alberta Ballet where he adapted existing works, as well as aided in the development of new works. A recent credit James particularly enjoyed was managing One Trunk Theatre's production of Red Earth, which brought a graphic novel to the stage. Outside of the theatre, he has a strong love for the outdoors and horizontal power structures.
The Residency
Before the DDI
Given that “Everything has disappeared” was already on its way to production with Mammalian Diving Reflex, the planned digital exploration of this group over the week was quite targeted. They decided to focus mainly on the concept of how to create the illusion of the central performer disappearing and reappearing as well as investigating how to use projection to display David Oro’s 360 degree illustrations. In addition to these goals they also wished to explore the integration of VR to create overarching virtual worlds for select audience members. Since the team had more of a background in projection than VR, they had a lot of questions around the incorporation of VR into a theatrical experience as well as how VR experiences could be created on a technical level.
Knowing the level of technical integration required with both the VR illustrated worlds and the stage magic moments, the group felt that they needed to make some amount of prototypes through the week in order to be able to move forward with the script and story. Prior to the residency the group had encountered writing roadblocks because of their lack of tangible knowledge concerning the VR and stage magic element and they hoped that spending time working through these technical challenges would unlock the next stage of script development.
While the premise of the show could be applied to many different communities and cultures, the group was very interested in thoroughly examining the role of the Filipino workforce in the world and more specifically in the Canadian economy. Coming into the residency they had done extensive research on the various chokepoints that would emerge and identified the economic sectors that would be the hardest hit or that would suffer the most dramatic shifts after this fictional event. While it wasn’t the focus of their DDI residency week, the group hoped to incorporate the stories and experiences of members of their local Filipino community going forwards.
During the residency
While the group had initially considered working with 360 degree 2D illustrations it quickly became clear that they were interested in the fullness that 3D environments provided and they began to explore what it feels like to move through a world in VR as an audience member. Given the nature of the story, the group was very drawn to the concept of glitches and how those glitches can be shown in different mediums. Since VR presents such an opportunity to create entire worlds, there was a desire to create spaces with shifting illustrative styles that can phase and glitch from one form to another. Using Gravity Sketch they were able to quickly prototype 3D illustrated environments and then explore them in VR.
Through their experiments with VR, the team was inspired to explore other concepts of gamification existing through their theatrical experience and began to investigate how to weave this thread of ‘games’ in a way that leaves the entire event feeling cohesive. By being able to rapidly test different VR options, the team was able to get instant experiential feedback which led them to create a flow between the digital and analogue elements that they hope to develop. While there were still significant knowledge gaps in terms of execution, even being able to test rough elements or concepts allowed them to flow from one idea to another fairly easily.
Although the team had been hoping that an exploration into digital methodologies would eventually lead to script development, they hadn’t anticipated the speed that story elements would unfold as digital tools were discovered and tinkered with. They also found new technological areas that they hope to explore in the future, such as adding in live Mocap so that the audience member in VR is able to see and interact with a digital character which is being animated live by a performer on stage.
One element of concern that was flagged through their experiments was the disorienting effect that entering VR can have on a person when they enter it for the first time. In order for the experience to have the desired outcome the group discovered that they will need to be very careful with the VR track that they create and how they transition someone from being just an audience member to existing in a virtual space. The hope is that by creating a linear digital track for an audience member to experience combined with live prompts from the performer that there won’t need to be a lengthy onboarding process and that the experience will still feel interactive even if it is actually predetermined.
As the plot progressed over the week it led to content questions around what is an okay digital environment to put someone in. How much is too much in terms of horror or other stimuli and what are the ethical ramifications of surrounding someone in an immersive horrifying environment?
Alongside the experiments with virtual reality, the group also spent time working with different projection surfaces and techniques such as projecting animations onto rotating scrims as well as playing with a variety of translucent materials to facilitate magic seeming disappearances.
Post Residency
One of the main discoveries of the week was in regards to both the purpose of the group as well as how VR can be created with purpose to create dramaturgically sound art. They are much more aware of how to go about creating work that feels technologically integrated instead of superfluous having the digital elements feeling like an accessory.
The team is very conscious of how technological elements can increase the budget of a piece and by getting to try out VR over the course of the week they were able to confirm that it is a direction they want to go in and can now look at budgeting both time and money appropriately. The need for a programmer as well as expanded timelines throughout the development of the piece to accommodate for the digital elements really crystallized by the end of the week. Given the cost of creating anything in VR, the team now knows that they really need to hone in on exactly what moments they want to show digitally before beginning to develop them.
The group was really struck with how transferable many of the skills and techniques from more traditional design fields are with VR and were excited to continue their digital exploration in the future.
Tools Used
360° illustrations
VR
Gravity sketch
