We invite you to join the presentation of performances that took place during the two-year European ViSet project – the use of new technologies in theater, that will take place from October 17-19, 2016.
The overall aim of the ViSet project is to promote the use of advanced digital technologies in various artistic formats and different cultural environments, as well as to present how art can benefit from these technologies. The project promotes the use of virtual set design, including the use of interactive technologies, virtual and augmented reality, and remote-control applications in performing arts. The project includes four partnering countries, Italy, UK, Spain, and Serbia. It is supported in Serbia by the European Commission through the Creative Europe program, the Ministry of Culture and Information of the Republic of Serbia, and the Provincial Secretariat for Science and Technological Development.
Festival program:
October 17, 5 p.m. – press conference, Dositej Obradović amphitheater at the Faculty of Management, 1a Njegoševa Street, Sremski Karlovci
October 18 – Laza Kostić Grammar School, 1 Laze Lazarevića Street, Novi Sad, from 4:30 p.m.: a presentation of the performance Superhero of Our Time (original: Superheroj našeg doba), Kulturanova and the Faculty of Management, Serbiaod 16.30h; followed by a presentation of the Laba Academy from Brescia, Italy
October 19 – Laza Kostić Grammar School, 1 Laze Lazarevića Street, Novi Sad, from 4:30 p.m.: a presentation of the Hypernatural installation, KònicThtr, Barcelona, Spain; followed by a presentation of the Alchemist performance, the Lemon Collective and Bring The Fire Project, Liverpool, UK.
We look forward to seeing you at the festival. For more information on scheduling a possible interview with one of the participants or organizers, please feel free to contact us. You can find more information on the official website of the project http://www.viset-project.eu or by sending an email to This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. (contact person: Milan Vračar).
More details about individual projects:
SUPERHERO OF OUR TIME - Kulturanova + FAM
Superhero of Our Time was inspired by a theater play based on the book Kazohinia written in 1941 by Sándor Szathmári. The play was created in another, an earlier project led by Kulturanova Association, EXCEPT. The story about traveling, exploring, social isolation, hunger, and sex, told through brutally clear physical actions is now placed in a virtual environment. We have also envisioned engaging the audience in the play by asking them to post selfies, thus making the set livelier. The audience will also have the right to interrupt, as well as determine the movements of the actors by using their smartphones. We decided to use a combination of documentary and recorded material with scenes that took place live and were created by the actors themselves. We were experimenting with possibilities of interrupting a simple illusion on stage and creating effects that are not there only to fascinate but are actually a reaction to the simultaneous appearance of humor and terror, lust and disgust, fear and laughter. Any resemblance to the real and fictional is – well, fictional and real.
LABA LIVE PERFORMANCE
A performer walks in the augmented reality of a theater proscenium, masked on the fourth wall (the invisible one) by a tulle fabric, which acts as a screen for video screenings, telling a story about the key events in the development of life. Conception, birth, growth, play, mutation, relationship, illness, and death are evoked in an imaginative space where the artist's imagination, the actor's movements, and a sequence of interactive animations plunge into a texture made of words and sounds vibrating on the strings of archetypes and ideas. The water that cradles us in the womb and then permeates our cells along the paths of our lives appears and disappears in the colors and lights of digital images, in the resonances of music and echoes of the poetic fragments from Ossi di Seppia, a collection of poems written by Eugenio Montale, a winner of the Nobel Prize for Literature. Developed by the Academy of Fine Arts in Brescia, through the activities of Andrea Gentili (Creative Director), Enzo Gentile Gentile and Paolo Servi.
HYPERNATURAL. INSTALLATION
An interactive audiovisual installation of micro mapping, part of the transmedia project Hypernatural by Kònic Thtr. Hypernatural explores the relation between individual – architecture and landscape. An architectonic model serves to support the projection of evocative images that will interact with the sound and movement of the audience.
The play was made by KònicThtr from Barcelona, an art platform focusing on contemporary works created at the intersection of art and new technologies. Kònic thtr is internationally renowned for the use of interactive technologies in creative projects. Their work has been presented in over thirty countries: MACBA, Mercat de Les Flores – Barcelona, the Institute of Contemporary Art, the Ikon Gallery, Tramway (UK), V2 (the Netherlands), ZKM, Podewill (Germany), Centre Pompidou/IRCAM (France), Centro de la imagen, CNART and CCE (Mexico), CESC Pompeia and Abrace, Sao Paulo (Brasil), Thêatre Mohamed VI, Casablanca (Morocco), Tshekh/Proekt Fabrika, Moscow (Russia), EMPAC and 3Legged Dog, New York (USA), the RokBund Art Museum, Shanghai and DanStorm, Bejing (China), PIER2 Art Centre, Kaohsiung (Taiwan).
ALHEMIČAR
The Alchemist is a collaborative performance between The Lemon Collective and Bring The Fire Project that will tour Europe in 2016. The play premiered at the opening show at Threshold Festival 2016 in Liverpool. The Alchemist uses animated projections to augment and explore the intrinsic relationship between performance, movement, and sacred geometry. Interactive LED double staffs show the patterns and symmetry apparent in object manipulation, seeking to bridge the gap between virtual and physical interaction.
Lemon Collective (UK), Dennis Outten – a freelance visual artist, creative director, and prop maker specializing in wood turning, multimedia installations, and performance art. He is currently developing his skills in the creative application of drones, digital media, virtual set design, workshop leading, and digital animation.
Szymon Mamys is an experienced fire performer and flow arts instructor, choreographer and producer of spectacular fire and light displays, founder of Bring the Fire Project and creator of Liverpool Fire Arts Festival. Alex Herring is a freelance theater designer, specializing in set design, costume and puppetry.
