Exploring choice, agency and automation, Project ’84: Part One is an interactive experiment testing the conditions in which a person turns ‘off’ & hopefully back ‘on’ as a social and political being. Using George Orwell’s 1984 as its launch pad, it explores consensual control and questions when a person is willing to enact their personal beliefs.
The events uniqueness is in its form; the spectating audience observes from their seats, while the performers (uninitiated audience members) receive instructions via their mobile phones. These synchronised, pre-recorded feeds are delivered by a custom piece of software which repurposes a call-centre system. The software synchronises each participant’s audio and allows them to make decisions by pressing numbers, sending them on unique journeys with music, imagery and instructions. Through an embodied and literal experience of the themes of control and submission from the book, Project ’84 aims to create awareness of when blind choice becomes habitual and the consequences, personal and social, which occur as a result. For the spectator, a vibration occurs between perceptions of reality and fiction as these audience members who were “one of us” take on elements of a fiction which transcends their real/physical bodies.
Credits
Co created by Felicity Nicol (Performance Director/Deviser), Melissa Lee-Speyer (Writer/Deviser) and Grant Moxom (Technical Director/Deviser)
Type
7 audience member instructional performance
Requirements
8 x Headsets
Custom built PBX phone system
Mobile reception
4G/cabled internet
PA