Motivation and Context

The next phase of the information age will not unfold on the computer screen or involve the mouse and keyboard. It will happen in public and private spaces without familiar personal computers, closer to the skin and at an interface between machine and body. Research surges ahead to explore artificial cognition, nanotechnology, smart objects, and responsive environments. Mouse clicks will be replaced by spoken words, gestures, and movements of the body. This new technology drives digital media into our everyday lives: away from our desks, away from our computers, and away from our televisions. It will be pervasive, ubiquitous and active in every object and element of our lives.

Seemingly on the other end of the spectrum is theater, with artists trying to understand its place in this new world where information is distinct from knowledge, a commodity that flows and is bought, sold, and manipulated instantaneously. How does performance, with its clear cut boundaries and emphasis on the body in space and (often) a text spoken the same way every night, capture the swarm of activity and dynamic possibilities of a mediatized modern world? Dramatic structure radically changed and adapted to the world’s altered perspectives during the Industrial Revolution, World Wars I & II, and the Vietnam War. Since, most dramatic literature has returned to and become stagnant in earlier, less venturesome formulas. Today’s perspective, altered by the information age, may very well be the fuel we need to once again stretch the boundaries of drama.

But where to begin? From the origins of Western storytelling, we will start with one of the oldest and most powerful stories; we will begin with The Iliad. Homer’s epic serves as a perfect canvas, both source and context for the work. The timeless story will not only receive a new look with the help of our research, it will comment on the research itself—as our planet continues to separate along the lines of a technological power struggle. Few would claim a personal or political affiliation with either side of the Trojan War, yet The Iliad has remained an incontestable lesson in the consequences of pride. Its pounding visceral descriptions of war seem far removed from the cold analytical language of information technology, but the stakes are just as high and the drive of power and human pride is no different. This theatrical experience will bridge the virtual and the real, the gods and mortals of today, engaging the audience directly in the macroscopic world of globalization. As it has been for poets from Sophocles to Shakespeare to the Coen brothers, the inspiration for this new work will be Homer’s epic poetry.

In this multi-year collaboration, faculty and students in directing, playwriting, media/technology, and engineering are developing new text, technology, and research methods to break out of traditional theatrical convention. To ground the unique aesthetic arising from this process, they will pull from the techniques of previous avant-garde movements in theater and film, traditional and modern art and photography, as well as the litanies of commercial art and advertising in every medium. Faculty and resident artists from the UCLA School of Theater, Film and Television are leading the research process to create a new type of narrative, one that intrinsically incorporates new technology and audience participation.

Performance spaces that have a memory; theaters that respond to audiences and performers; massive databases of imagery, sound, and information that can all be recalled dynamically- these are the building blocks of a new type of performance experience uniquely suited to our time and to this story. Our unique modern epic will propel the audience literally out of their seats and into the action as observer, initiator, and performer.