Schwelle (“threshold”) is a new media and performance project using
cutting edge acoustic and interactive technologies to explore the extreme threshold
states of consciousness that constitute human experience. Created as an international
collaboration with artists and researchers from Montreal, Berlin, Amsterdam,
Shanghai and the United States, the project uses the mediums of live audio/visual
composition, interactive installation and live, real time performance to create
states of consciousness in the spectator akin to threshold states that one experiences
at the edge of trance, sleeping and death. Part 1 and 2 of the project will
be premiered in Berlin in February 2007 as part of the Transmediale festival
for art and digital culture and Part II of the work will be premiered in Montreal
in May 2007 at Place des Arts/Cinquième Salle as a collaboration between
the Elektra festival and Place des Arts.
The discussion will examine some of the aesthetic, technological, political
and experiential questions that are arising in the research/creation process
of the project. Chris Salter: concept design/direction (Montreal/Germany)
Michael Schumacher: performer (Netherlands/US)
Heidi Gilpin: dramaturgy/assistant direction (US)
Leah Xiao, lighting design (China/US).
Entrance is free and open to the public.
Part of the lecture series “Bodies Bits | Corps données”
co-sponsored by the Art+D Laboratory/SAT, the Sense Lab, and the Workshop in
Radical Empiricism. Organized by Erin Manning and Brian Massumi