By Ant Hampton, with Joji Koyama and Isambard Khroustaliov
“Hugely entertaining… This smart, mysterious exercise in programmed thinking and collective chaos is strange but exhilarating.” – The Times
“You may find yourself frantically looking for yourself again in the moments after the performance has finished.” – The Guardian
You have been told what to do every moment of the day, for years on end. The voice in your headphones has understood who you are and gives instructions which mirror what you’d be doing anyway. A life free of dither and uncertainty! In your job, this voice is a career-saver… but the day has come when you need to come ‘off the headphones’. You need help.
Five participants enter a brightly lit room, there are five chairs positioned around a TV. A session begins, and as each audience member follows different instructions via headphones, they begin to understand ‘who they are’. Proceedings are led by an on-screen, animated character – whose twin roles of marketing and spiritual Guru are confused by his reliance on untested and accident-prone technologies. The overproduced, digital sheen of our focus-group world cracks open into a colourful volcano of boiling absurdity. A hilarious chaos develops, exposing today’s consumer-mad inability to distinguish between what we want, and what we need.
A Rotozaza Production By Ant Hampton, with Joji Koyama and Isambard Khroustaliov
Commissioned by Fusebox Festival, Texas
Produced by ArtsAgenda
Presented as part of COIL 2010
Supported by the British Council.
50 minutes
January 6-12, 2010
Jan 6 – 8, Jan 11 – 12:
Performances daily 4pm, 5pm, 6pm, 7pm, 8pm, 9pm, 10pm
Sat, Jan 9: Performances 3pm, 4pm, 5pm, 6pm, 7pm, 8pm, 9pm, 10pm
Sun, Jan 10: Performances 3pm, 4pm, 5pm, 6pm, 7pm, 10pm
$10