Design And Performance Lab

 

Bacon Oratorio

Corpo, Carne e Espírito

.

a new project created by Johannes Birringer (digital scenography/composition) and Paulo C. Chagas (music) and commissioned by FIT 2008 (International Theatre Festival, Belo Horizonte, Brasil, June-July 2008)

. .
 

 

For a preview information on the production and its world premiere in Brasil, please visit here

 

preview film

 

 

The music-theatre production Corpo, Carne e Espírito investigates the invisible forces of the human body in the contexts of the artistic creation, interactive technology, virtual and immersive environments.

The audiovisual work is based on Francis Bacon, with music by Paulo C. Chagas inspired by the paintings and life of Francis Bacon (1909-1992). The composition for three voices (soprano, counter-tenor, baritone), string quartet, percussion and electronic sounds is integrated in the visual and performance environment designed by Johannes Birringer.

Corpo, Carne e Espírito 's digital scenarios and digitalized performance choreographies will be developed in London at the DAP Lab; the music rehearsals and scenographic integrations are conducted in Belo Horizone in June 2008.

(c) 2008 palo1, photograph by David Caton

Corpo, Carne e Espírito develops a poetics of body/machine interfaces which seeks to capture and make visible the forces of the ritualistic practices of post-biological age. It explores the perception of the physical (flesh) and transcendental (spirit) dimensions of the human body when transformed and modified by connective sensual technologies.

rehearsal photo from triptych scen projection of figure from scene "Knife/Violation" (c) J Birringer

 

As pointed out by Deleuze in Francis Bacon: The Logic of Sensation (1981), the representation of the body in the paintings of Bacon reveals zones of indiscernibility between the human and the animal, elements of an experiment process of uncharted mutation. Deleuze associates those zones with the body as flesh or meat. Paulo C. Chagas' music aims to capture the invisible forces of the human body in its dimensions of animal and sublime. The digital image scenarios by Birringer reflect on the connections and interfaces between the human body and the bio-cybernetic body. The magical thinking of the technical apparatuses symbolically re-contextualizes the expanded power of human activity through the interactivity of post-biological age.

 

 

preview film

 

 

all images from the new rehearsals and software design devopment at DAP Lab Studio and Teatro Klauss Vianna/Oi Futuro, Belo Horizonte (c) 2008 DAP Lab

Special thanks to painter David Caton

 

Further notes on design and performance concepts are published on this site.

click here

(c) dap 2007-08

 

Project directors: Johannes Birringer & Michèle Danjoux

Brunel University, West London