Apr 26, 2018
seen from Japan
seen from Singapore
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seen from Türkiye
seen from Singapore
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seen from United States
seen from T1
seen from United States
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seen from India
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seen from United States
seen from United States
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seen from China
image credit: Marek Ball, @MarekSaidHi
Sophie Spain, Vita Arcimoviča (left to right)
the end of the beginning //
The journey to Illumina:4891 was a complex and winding one, with the original starting point coming from taking ideas and elements from three completely different ideas. Throwing out company names like “Coffee Cup Company”, and “Caffeine Chaos Productions”, you can sense that it took us a while to settle as “Last Minute Productions”. With artistic differences and clashing opinions, it took us a few weeks before we were able to come up with an idea that “had legs”, and was capable of being developed further. Some examples of influences for the original ideas range from 4.48 Psychosis (Kane, 2000), where the performance would be an exploration into an interpretation of the play, to X (McDowall, 2016), where the entire performance would take place on a space station. The concepts of doing a multimedia take on 4.48 Psychosis, as well as making a performance out of a “space station” scenario were soon vetoed. There was an additional idea of relying entirely on the audience for most of the performance content, as well as the performance heavily relying on improvisation. Eventually, we developed an idea that took the best aspects from each; a conspiracy idea where the major backstory that would be developed by the audience (via SurveyMonkey), some characters being recorded and others performing live, as well as having the audience vote and have direct influence on the direction of the piece during the live performance. Finally, we began developing and exploring the world that was Illumina:4891.
250 words.
Kane, S., 2000. 4.48 Psychosis. London: Methuen Drama
McDowall, A., 2016. X. London: Bloomsbury Methuen Drama
SurveyMonkey, 2018 [online] Available at: https://www.surveymonkey.com/ [Accessed: 8th February 2018].
image credit: Vita Arcimoviča
something is coming //
With 1,416 people reached via the Facebook posts for the survey, 616 people reached for the teaser trailer, 425 people reached for live stream of performance, which had 168 views, it was clear that audience participation and engagement was a huge part of the performance itself, as well as the ethos for Last Minute Productions. We were very clear that the survey, which received approximately 250 results, would inform the majority of the backstory. To ensure that the audience outside those attending the performance were engaged, we decided that a trailer would be the best way, releasing a one minute version one week before the performance, and then the full trailer would be shown before the performance started, as well as being released simultaneously on the Facebook page. We made the decision that we would release content on a weekly basis in order to keep the audience engaged. For this, we created news articles, propaganda posters, as well as the teaser trailer.
I asked Bethan Marlowe what her preferred platform was for engaging audiences during a Skype workshop, and she said that Facebook was her preferred profile to use as there was already an “existing audience”, as well as it being the most compatible with videos, images and written posts. To support this, we shared the page with all of our friends and family, and we ended up with 127 likes and follows, which proved immensely useful in terms of distributing content as they could also share the posts.
250 words.
Bethan Marlowe. 2016. Skype Call with Bethan Marlowe. Interviewed by Performance and Media Year 2. [via Skype] USW Atrium, Cardiff, 25th January 2018.
Dennis, K., Wood, B., Spain, S., and Arcimoviča, V., 2018. Last Minute Productions. [Facebook] 19th February 2018. Available from: https://www.facebook.com/lastminuteproductionsusw [Accessed date: 19th February 2018].
Last Minute Productions: via SurveyMonkey, 2018. Conspiracy Theory. [online] Available at: https://www.surveymonkey.co.uk/r/7K2WRDL [Accessed: 22nd February 2018].
image credit: Marek Ball, @MarekSaidHi
Ashleigh Carter, Sophie Spain, Vita Arcimoviča (left to right)
influence and world-building //
During the conceptualisation of Illumina:4891, we found influence from a lot of subject material. We also decided to pay homage to Nineteen Eighty-Four (Orwell, 1949) the novel, as well as the stage edition (Icke, Macmillan and Orwell, 2013), since the dystopian world that Orwell created was something akin to the atmosphere that we were wanting to create for Illumina:4891. I suggested the idea of specifying the year that the piece takes place, and made the reference to 1984 by reversing the year. A large number of the world-specific names came from the concept of light and dark.
“Illumina” - the Latin for “to illuminate”
“Cimmerian” - a member of a mythical people living in perpetual mist and darkness, the Cimmerians were an ancient people.
“Illuminatrix” - play on the Illuminati, to become more a business/corporation
“Churches of the Enlightened” - direct reference to light, as well as those who are not under influence of the Illuminatrix
“Ministry of Truth” - is a direct reference to 1984, the name used to refer to the justice system in Illumina
“Coruscate” - flash or sparkle, we felt that the name of the “work camp” needed to have an intentionally deceptive name.
“The Renegades” - a name that the in-world media thrust upon the Churches of the Enlightened
Another influence for some of the material was an educational game called State of Debate (BBC Bitesize, 2014). With a “choose-your-adventure” style, a video explains a circumstance, and then the player must navigate the best way out of that situation, where their aim is to out-debate officials in a dystopian world. The shooting style of the videos are POV shots (point of view), and this was the style that we wanted for some of the evidence that we could use in the case.
Because our main component of the live performance would be taking place in a courtroom-esque space, we needed to find out the technicalities of working in that kind of atmosphere, as well as looking into the jargon. We found a play similar to ours, called Jury Play, which aimed to immerse an audience in the atmosphere of the court, the audience “receive an email inviting us to court and detailing a dress code. When we arrive, we walk through a metal detector and are handed a guide to jury service.” (Inglis, 2017) In our production, we handed the audience members black armbands, in order for them to conform to the aesthetic that we were going for with the costuming; all of the members of the Illuminatrix were in all black, whereas the rebel character slightly deferred from this code. In an article comparing the courtroom to the theatre, Rogers (2008) “legal performances are anchored in violence and theatrical performances are not.” In Illumina:4891, we go against this statement as there is the looming threat of undetermined violence upon the character of Wyn as no matter the outcome of the trial, he knows that he will be made to “disappear”.
490 words.
BBC Bitesize, 2014. KS3 Bitesize Games: State of Debate. [online] Available at: http://www.bbc.co.uk/bitesize/ks3/games/english/ [Accessed: 22nd February 2018].
Icke, R., Macmillan, D., and Orwell, G., 2013. 1984. London: Oberon Books.
Inglis, B., 2017. Jury Play: at Traverse Theatre. The Wee Review, [online] 6th October 2017. Available at: http://theweereview.com/review/jury-play/ [Accessed: 6th March 2018].
Orwell, G., 1949. Nineteen Eighty-Four. London: Secker and Warburg.
Rogers, N., 2008, ‘The play of law: comparing performances in law and theatre’, Queensland University of Technology Law Journal, vol. 8, no. 2, pp. 429-443.
image credit: Marek Ball, @MarekSaidHi
Kay R. Dennis