To Be a Machine (Version 2.0)
Year Awarded
2021
Amount
€49,200
- Organisation:Dead Centre Theatre
- Audience:General Public
- Format:Informal Education
- Location:Dublin
- Topic:Technology
Project Summary
To Be a Machine (Version 2.0) will be a unique theatrical experience, with audience members influencing and coauthoring the performance, creating a personalised digital event.
In 2020, Dead Centre rushed forward the production of To Be a Machine (Version 1.0), a live-stream theatre project, with an audience watching from home, but “uploaded” in a theatre full of iPads. We were overwhelmed with the connection made with audiences, and the critical success of the project: it has played in Belgium, a German-language version was made in Vienna and it won the inaugural Irish Society for Theatre Research “Special Prize for Performance Practice”. We will continue our exploration of Mark O’Connell’s book, and its themes (transhumanism and technology), in the next iteration: To Be A Machine (Version 2.0).
Reuniting the original team (inc. performer Jack Gleeson) we will work in collaboration with Science Gallery Dublin to deliver a project of increased technical ambition, asking new questions about the meaning of “being there”: delivered via an App, it will an audience-centred experience where the user can choose the set, music, and design, and upload themselves into the show, becoming the performer in their own bespoke play, experienced through their phone / tablet, wherever they happen to be.
With Discover programme support, To Be a Machine (Version 2.0) will preview at Mermaid Arts Centre in August and premiere in Dublin Theatre Festival, October 2022. We expect audience attendance of 1760, and will work with field:arts to target first time STEM event attendees.