Analog Forgery ’s - A Tempest (working title)

This WEBpage exists as a space to share the creative course of this production, and how elements have shaped themselves together over the months and years of A Tempest’s inception and design.

Analog Forgery was created for this production, and to date we have had four workshops and many hours of meetings and discussions. The pandemic forced us to rethink the presentation format and the project has greatly shifted from its initial roots.

Scenographic Design - Concept Art by Maya Wilson, colour by Christine Mccauley

We have a man sitting atop an “Island” of used electronics: TVs, radios, computers, consoles, record players, and many other pieces of technology in various conditions. The Island occupies the center of the space. Radiating off of this Island are ten pods, isolated from each other. Each pod contains a computer, several monitors, and a cell phone. The man sitting on top of this “Island” is Prospero. The cell phones ring in each pod. The audience members pick up their phones in their own time. The computer screens light up. Machinery whirs to life. So, begins “The Tempest” by William Shakespeare.

A Tempest is a multidisciplinary and interactive piece created by a Montreal English-language collective, Analog Forgery. A hybrid of live performance and digital experience which will test the boundaries of how many different layers of communication audiences can consume and understand at one time. This piece aims to create a true synthesis of text and technology, pushing the theatre to new heights while staying rooted in its history.

Using video, cameras, cell phones, robotics, computers, and the live actor, audience members in their pods will experience the piece in multiple ways; a sensory and immersive event that will not only highlight surveillance and digital technology's pervasiveness in our everyday lives, but remind us that in it all we must not forget who and what we are: human.

Original Research and Creation ‘Lookbook’ from 2020

You can check out the interactive version here

The COVID-19 pandemic has made our lives even more digital than ever and paradoxically both more and less connected. Even before the pandemic, Analog Forgery, composed of 30-year veteran actor and director Shawn Campbell and digital pioneers Emily Soussana and Andrew Scriver who together form potatoCakes_digital, fleshed out a concept for Shakespeare’s The Tempest that crafted a true technology ecosystem involving a hybrid live theatre performance fused with a tech-centric ultra modern interactive digital exhibition. The pandemic has shifted our thinking naturally and the project has grown to further incorporate digital by becoming simultaneously two creations in one—a hybrid of in-person performance and virtual presentation.

We aim to develop a uniquely “gamified” experience, on one hand for viewers in person sitting in technology-laden pods, and in the other hand on a custom integrated webpage for a purely digital audience. In both cases, the story is fueled by a myriad of live performances involving many characters played by Shawn Campbell, and seamlessly supported by integrated digital tech such as recorded segments, real time augmented reality, 3D animation, soundscapes and game play, all layered under traditional theatre design. By “gamified” we mean to borrow traditional game design concepts and ideas in order to construct a new form of digital dramaturgy that explores some of the visual language, interactive player experiences, and powerful storytelling techniques found in video games. Our intent is to move beyond both traditional analog and digital theatre and forge an answer to the need for a multi-faceted experience rooted in the stage with spirit and mind integrated in the virtual realm.

Rehearsal Concept ViDEO - Miranda VHS Recordings

The gamified experience for the viewer becomes a platform that is both familiar and unexpected, a platform that when applied to theatrical storytelling carries with it an extra layer of danger, suspense, and unexpected “out on a ledge” feel of live theatre. Digital dramaturgy like this lends itself to cohesive experiences for several generations of viewers who with each passing year become further ensconced in their own tech bubbles often leaving lingering feelings of isolation, as though moored on a deserted island. By leveraging the pervasiveness of technology while giving audiences an untraditional yet familiar way to interact with the material, we aim to have our work tell a multi-layered story that serves as a reminder of what it means to be human in a world inundated with digital. Seamlessly the technology—and the lenses we filter it through—not only becomes a way to experience the piece but a way to deepen our knowledge of it, ourselves, and contemporary society.

Prospero Character Design - Concept Art by Christine MCCauley

With this ubiquitous technological ecosystem, how many people other than the device designers themselves know how this web of technology actually works? We tend to treat it like magic. The term automagically has come into the language to convey this very idea. The extensive use and theme of magic in the ”The Tempest” takes on new and powerful meanings and resonances when we substitute “technology” for “magic”.

Rehearsal Concept ViDEO - Ariel and Caliban AI Visualizations

One example is Ariel as an operating system; the operating system of the piece. Prospero employs this “magic” to create and manipulate. Ariel, omnipotent and omnipresent, appears as a multitude of creatures: sounds, projections, and augmented realities that morph before our eyes. By connecting and disconnecting the viewers throughout the experience of the piece, we might further drive home the theme of isolation in the text. Messages sent by viewers are received by fellow viewers at random.

The audience players’ virtual worlds overlay the performances with various forms of information: pictures, essays, definitions, poems, video feed of security cameras on the island, video feeds of other audience members; even simultaneous video of the actor playing Prospero thereby testing how many layers of information viewers can synthesize at once. By overstimulating viewer attention we will push to see what is possible, what is gained, and what is lost along the way.

By tackling The Tempest in this fashion of an interactive hybrid of live and digital performance, we are giving ourselves the flexibility to experiment with the story and the technology, while also providing explorations around game play, the storytelling power of traditional text in digital theatre, and most importantly the human connection in the digital realm.