“The WhiteOut” by Frédéric Deslias

Title:

The WhiteOut

Artist(s) and People Involved:

Artist Statement:

Hacnum Exhibition. various locations, May 16 – 21

Immersive Theater and Virtual Reality. for 50 to 100 people including 20 with VR headset.
Approximate duration: 1h15.

The White Out is a performance for an actor and an immersive audiovisual device, on the edge of theater and virtual reality, adapted from a short story by Alain Damasio. An investigation against a backdrop of injections of memories, coupled with an ode to past, present and future resistance.

Through the adaptation of a thriller by Alain Damasio, spectators will be led to conduct an investigation through different media in order to become the jurors of a rather special futuristic trial. This immersive show is divided into three parts for around fifty spectators, 20 of whom will be immersed in VR headphones. Active participation is requested from the public in a memory reconstruction exercise in a forensic setting. Thirty lucid witnesses equipped with audio headsets will follow the experience from the outside guided by a coryphean actor, who will embody the guinea pig of an investigation by injections of memories.

Other spectators immersed in the VR headset will form a chorus, guided in a process of memory manipulation in order to have access, just like the actor on stage, to the memories of the various suspects. The story takes place in winter, in the mountains. The Vercors territory, snow and water are important aesthetic elements.

Summary: A memory storage factory explodes, thousands of samples contained in snowflakes spill out into the wild. To reconstruct the circumstances of the accident (or attack?), a volunteer is injected with samples of memories stored in water molecules. On stage, an actor will find himself crossed by the memories, sometimes incomplete or even contradictory, of various witnesses considered as potentially suspicious.

after “The Chamois of the Alps Leaps” by Alain Damasio

Direction and sound: Frédéric Deslias
Performer: Pierre Mignard
3D: Benjamin Bardou
Music: Perig Villerbu
Artistic Collaborator: Mathilde Gentil
Lighting: Quentin Pallier
Dramaturgy: Cathy Blisson
Voiceover: Jérôme Thibault, Jana Klein, Eric Schlaefin, Angie Pict, Marion Suzanne .
Photos: Alban Van Wassenhove