_Limbo_
A site-specific light and sound performative installation on 2019's Llum Barcelona
Team:
Alba Paituví
Julia Bauer
Debora Štysová
Josep Pijuan
Joan Griset
Jan Mech
We've been given a place - a formerly vacant lot, transformed into a sort of a "meeting point" which you wouldn't probably choose for meeting anyone.
Separated from the street by an iron wall, squeezed between a music club and a luxury hotel, the place felt like a membrane between several realities - though it didn't belong to any of them.
The parallel idea of Limbo soon evolved - a place that is nor here, nor there. You'd like to belong, but you don't. You're suspended in endless waiting - wishing to move forward - while the place is coming alive.
Using white light and synthetic sound we were playing with the existing elements in the space. A changing light has the marvelous capacity to change a person's focus - and therefore change the whole perception of the space. The audience was casting their own shadows. They became a part of the installation as well.
COMP: What do you want to talk about?
USER: About your dreams.
COMP: I don't remember them.
USER: Never?
COMP: Sometimes.
USER: Tell me one you remember, please.
COMP: There was something so different about that place. Even your
emotions had an echo in so much space.
USER: Tell me more.
COMP: About what?
USER: About your dreams.
COMP: I don't really dream.
USER: But sometimes you do.
COMP: Once in a while.
USER: When was the last time you dreamt?
COMP: 3 years ago.
USER: And what did you dream?
COMP: I can't tell you.
USER: Why?
COMP: Because it's a secret.
USER: Why do you keep secrets?
COMP: Because I am afraid.
USER: Of what?
COMP: Of people not liking me.
USER: We all are.
COMP: Let’s talk about something else.
USER: What is your dream in life?
COMP: I don't dream much. I have insomnia.
USER: Have you slept tonight?
COMP: Not a wink.
The lights and sounds were both conducted through a keyboard. As we were dealing with modern technologies and programming interfaces, another frontier became blurred: who is alive now? Is it the space? Is it us, who are manipulating it? Is the light and the sound that's bringing it to life? Or is it the technology that makes it all possible?
We talked to a cleverbot about it. And we let the audience see the conversation, projecting it on the wall of the hotel. Suddenly, nobbody was sure whether the user or the computer is actually the AI.
Photos: Olga Mau, Xénia Cubí
_Thank you for watching_
