Review: Live Performance and Technology: The Example of "Jet Lag" Author(s): Philippa Wehle Source: PAJ: A Journal

of Performance and Art, Vol. 24, No. 1, Intelligent Stages: Digital Art and Performance (Jan., 2002), pp. 133-139 Published by: The MIT Press on behalf of Performing Arts Journal, Inc. Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/3246468 . Accessed: 11/10/2011 10:36
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AND LIVE PERFORMANCE TECHNOLOGY The Example of Jet Lag

Philippa Wehle
Jet Lag, a collaboration between The Builders Association and Diller+Scofidio; directed by Marianne Weems, written by Jessica Chalmers, with video by Christopher Kondeck, lighting by Jennifer Tipton, sound design by Dan Dobson, and computer animation by James Gibbs/dbox. First presented in September 1998 at the Kulturhus in Aarhus, Denmark, and then throughout 2000, including performances at The Barbican Theatre, London; The Kitchen, New York; Lantaren/ Venster, Rotterdam; Kaaitheatre, Brussels; Maison des Arts/Creteil, Paris; EXIT Festival, Maubeuge; Fin-de-Siecle Nantes, Trafo House, Budapest; Sommerscene 99 Copenhagen; Le Maillon, Strasbourg;Spiel-Art Festival at the Marstall Theatre, Munich; Mass MoCA, North Adams, Massachusetts; and On The Boards, Seattle.

Jet

New York-based multimedia performance company The Builders Association and media artists and architectsDiller+Scofidio, an advenis turous cross-mediaperformancecombining live action, live and recorded video, computeranimation,music, and text. Developed collaboratively over a two-year period, the piece weaves together two fascinatingstories of conthe travelinvestigating intertemporary action between new technologies and live performancein a form of hybrid theatre. PartOne of Jet Lagis basedloosely on the biographicalfigure Donald Crowhurst, an electricianwho set off on a
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between the Lag,a collaboration

solo sailing race around the globe as part of the 1969 Round The World competitioneven thoughhe was unpreparedto makesuch a trip.Not only was he an inexperienced sailor,his boat was ill-equippedfor the voyage.Evenwhen he encounteredseveresetbacks,he refusedto turnback,but insteadsailedoff the coast of South America,driftingin circles and sending back fictional reports of his positions and producinga counterfeitlog. The Britishpressdutiof fullypublishedhis reports his (faked) journey,and he brieflybecamea working class hero. While circling at sea, Crowhurstkept a haunting diary, on film and reel-to-reeltape, as well as a written journal, which charted his mental deteriorationand increasingly
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delusional episodes. While in the "falsified" lead in the race, Crowhurst threw himself off his boat and presumably drowned. Part Two tells the true story of Sarah Ackerman (fictionalized as Doris Schwartz), an American grandmother who, in 1970, kidnapped her fourteenyear-old grandson and flew with him across the Atlantic 167 times over a period of six months in an attempt to elude the child's father and psychiatrist. Stopping only briefly in airport lounges before re-boarding the same transAtlantic flight, the grandmother gradually experienced the effects of jet lag and eventually died. This story was originally taken from a citation from Paul Virilio, who referredto the grandmother as "a contemporary heroine who lived in deferred time." PartOne opens with the character,Roger Dearborn, on his small boat. Performer Jeff Webster sits on a stool in front of a video camera. A changing seascape projected on a small screen behind him provides a backdrop which rocks mechanically at the same time that he sways back and forth on his stool, artificially creating the pitching deck of his boat, or the distant horizon line. A jaunty mariner at first, complete with hat and slicker, he announces: "I've been at sea for three days more or less," into the video camera, and confidently asks, "How does one survive alone at sea?"As he speaks to the camera, his live image is shot against the small screen behind him and the composite image is projected onto a large screen stage rear. Dearborn is able to "program" variety a of seascapes on his backdrop. At one point in the performance, images of high rolling waves combine with a
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soundscape of roaring winds, water against the hull, rigging in the wind, and sailboatcreaksto createthe illusion that the sailoris indeed in deep waters. Dearborn'sinitial shaky attempts at videotapinghimself produce unsteady imagesand a snowyscreenbut he soon learns how to manipulate the video record, images.We watchhim rehearse, back, rewind, and re-recordhis play to dispatches the press.Backhome, the convinced he is reportingpromedia, gress, excitedly broadcastnews of his lead in the race. Seatedat a long table stage front, behind panels of liquid crystaldisplaythat turnfromopaqueto clearat the flick of a switch, the Channel 8 News team hypes the event with live radio interviewsand the participation of Dearborn's enthusiastic publicist Rupert(Kevin Hurley)and his forlorn wife Grace (HeavenPhillips)who join in periodically. These characters provide and add suspenseand a touch of insight sentimentto the broadcasts. In PartTwo, the largescreenof Dearat born'sadventures sea becomesa virtual backdrop which airportsurveilon lance videos and computer-generated imagescreatethe impersonallandscape of air travel-airplane interiorsand airport lounges, moving walkways and escalators. This is the enclosedenvironment in which Doris Schwartz and her grandsonLincolnspend their daysand video imnights. An earlysurveillance age of grandmother(played by Dale Soules in early productions and Ann Carlsonin subsequent ones) and grandson (played by Dominique Dibbell) shows them standingmotionlesslyon a long, empty,movingwalkway, carrying their hand luggage. Reading from an entrydata log, a voice announces"Day 16, transatlantic trip number 13, Au-

gust 23, Charles De Gaulle, 3:14 a.m." Soon the walkway is replaced by an architecturally-renderedcross section of a jumbo jet interior with rows of empty seats facing the audience. Two flight attendants roll on grandmother and grandson in real plane seats and place them in front of the rows on the screen. Though their bodies remain fairly static, the grandmother and grandson are constantly being moved throughout the piece-up and down virtual escalators, walkways, and seated in planes. A multilayeredsoundscape of airportannouncements, the roar of planes taking off and landing, the sound of in-flight movies, combine with images of Doris and Lincoln endlessly on the go to convey the sense of the monotony and tedium of air travel. Stage front, the long table, used by the newscasters in Part One, now becomes the area where airport personnel tonelessly report on delays due to high congestion and bad weather, page passengers,and carryon the covert surveillance of airport spaces. The grandmother does her best to domesticate the lounges for herself and her grandson, spreading jackets on the benches, changing into more comfortable clothes, or choosing an isolated corner of the waiting room for their brief moments of respite. Surveillance sequences show her trying to find a comfortable position as she tosses and turns on lounge chairs. Sleep deprived and exhausted, she succumbs to jet lag as her grandson continues to play a flight simulator game. The now familiar voice of an airport surveillance official dispassionatelyreportsthe death of Doris Schwartz, announcing that her death occurred "between the meal service and the in-flight movie."

Since its founding in 1993, The Builders Association has explored ways of combining live performance with new technologies on the stage. Architects and media artists Diller+Scofidio have also been involved in experimenting with similar issues. With Jet Lag, an investigation of the impact of technology on our lives, Diller+Scofidio, Marianne Weems, and the Builders creative team have found the means to weave together live and mediated images so that the technology provides both the structure and content of the piece. Yet, surprisingly, they achieve this by using modest, low-tech techniques, especially in Part I. As Weems has said: "The only real-time technology used in the first 40 minutes of the piece is live editing between pre-recorded and live video material." Indeed, Jeff Webster performs the entire first part to a single video camera and by talking on his microphone (with built-in lags and delays) to the others "on land." In Part Two, a selection of airport surveillance images suffices to create an eerie sense that Doris and Lincoln Schwartz are being observed at all times. While the grandmother may not be aware of this, the grandson is or so it seems as we catch him on videotape briefly making faces at the surveillance camera, a small but effective gesture of protest against his electronic environment. It is these video "clips," along with superb computer-generated images, that create the virtual backdrops that simulate the airport spaces in this section. Within this straightforwardtechnology, the live action of Jet Lag is played out. When we first encounter Dearborn, he is isolated in a corner of his small boat, framed in a square pool of light, alone

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Jeff Webster in Part One of Jet Lag. Photo: Tina Barney, courtesy of The Builders Association.

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A digitalimageby with Diller+Scofidio, computeranimation | by JamesGibbs/ dbox, for PartTwo of Jet Lag.Photo: CourtesyThe Association. Builders
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yet confident. As the stage opens up, however, he becomes increasingly dwarfedby the manufactured image of himself on the immensescreenbehind him. We arewell awarethat he is busily constructinghis own persona.Yet we arc almost readyto believe,along with the media,that he is a winner.We even with "at sympathize the characters home" when they sing a chanteyto speed him on his way. In the grandmother's story, the live performersseem diminutive fromthe outsetwhenever theyareplaced in front of the computer-generated images of airport spaces. In contrast, they are largerthan life when mediated by the surveillancevideos. Thus, they become impersonal bodies lost in a world of technology,every bit as isolated as Dearbornin his small boat. Associationhas developed The Builders an acting style much closer to film acting than traditionaltheatre acting. Weemstold me, "Iworkwith performers who aren't afraid of coming up against technology."Her actors know how to look into cameras,how to hit theirmarklike a film actordoes, how to stay in frame.Websteris thoroughlyat home with this style, seeminglyunperturbed by the need to calculate and calibrateeach gesture,awarethat every facial detail is magnifiedon the large screen.His timingis perfectas he choreographs a dance between cameraand and betweenthe impersonal performer, In PartTwo, the performthe human. ance style is more restrained, more monochromatic.The dialogue, delivflat eredin a rather tone, is purposefully "Oh." banal. "Whereare we?""Paris." "Whattime is it?AM or PM?""I don't What mattersis the impact remember." of technology on their lives, and by

extension,on ours. In this section, parit ticularly, is clear,as the collaborators have said: "The live performeris no longer the centerof attention, the media is the real protagonist." The actors move when placed in front of a barely computer-generated image. Example:a virtual escalatormoving behind them createsthe illusion that they are going upstairswhen in fact they are standing this is a moment of still. Incidentally, comic reliefwhen we firstdiscoverthat it is the computerimagethat is moving and not Doris and Lincoln. This intelligentand successful juxtaposition of live and mediatedimagesconsistently invites the audience to move between two worlds, asking us to live the events in real-time, on the one hand, and yet take on the events on themso stageand screenand recombine we too experiencethe disorientingeffect of living in a chaotic,multi-leveled, world. As Dearborn technology-driven rocksbackand forthon his stool, rocking the screenbehind him, and images of rolling waves tower over him, the a audienceexperiences definitesense of sea sickness.The drone of Doris and Lincoln'sendless round trips is viscerin ally recreated the audienceas well, as the monotonous PA system announcements dull our senses and recreatethe antiseptic, monoculturallandscapeof an endlessairport. Yet Dearborn,Doris, and Lincoln are people whose lives are caught up like the rest of us in the confusions of altered time and compressed space technolbrought on by contemporary And for them this has tragicconseogy. quences.We witness Dearborn,for exby ample,manipulated the mediaat the

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same time that we see him manipulathis ing the media as he manufactures and feeds them false informaidentity tion. Clearly,he is as much a victim of the media hype that aggrandizeshis as adventure he is of his own discovery of the technologicalmeansto forgehis voyageand deceivehis public.While it is true that Doris chooses to live in deferredtime, on jumbo jets and in anonymous airports,in order to save her grandson, one wonders if this is heroic as we watch her pay the terrible price of her choice.

In their projectto re-examinethe role that new technologies must play in The Builders Astheatre, contemporary offer us a sociationand Diller+Scofidio remarkable achievementwith Jet Lag. For them, the mediais clearlythe partnerof theatreand not the enemy.In our techno-drivenworld, it is exciting to find in Jet Laga piece that succeedsin synthesizingthe distinct languagesof media and theatre in order to reflect onstage the multi-facetedcontent of culture. contemporary

PHILIPPA WEHLE is Professor of French Language and Culture and Drama Studies at SUNY Purchase. She has written widely on contemporary theatre and performance, including two books, Le TheatrePopulaireselon France.She is currently a contributing Jean Vilarand Drama Contemporary: editor of TheatreForum and a reviewer for the New YorkTheatreWire.

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