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The Builders Association and dbox, SUPER VISION: NARRATIVE


SUPER VISION tells three stories

1. As he crosses successive borders, a solitary traveller gradually is forced to reveal all of his personal information, until his identity becomes transparent, with no part of his life left outside the boundaries of datasurveillance.

2. A young woman (Jen), addicted to the white noise of constant connection, maintains a long-distance relationship with her Grandmother. As she makes efforts to digitally archive her Grandmother's past, the Grandmother slips into senility.

3. A father covertly exploits his young son's personal data to meet the demands of the family's lifestyle. This ploy escalates beyond the father's control, until he is compelled to disappear. His wife and son are left with a starkly diminished data portrait, and his escape is shadowed by the long reach of the datasphere.


Marianne Weems

Nick Kaye: It seems to me that you are looking for a very specific quality of narrative in the work.

Marianne Weems: What quality would that be?

Nick Kaye: On one level the narratives are immediately understandable and engaging and at another level the three stories hold something back in some way – they don’t come down to a complete resolution, so something is left hanging. Also, in the emotional quality of the narrative there is an important level of ambiguity.

Marianne Weems: Interesting. Yes, I think that is all true. At the same time it was a goal of mine to try to have stories with beginnings, middles and ends. These three stories resolve more than stories in our other shows, but they don’t resolve each other, or fold into each other, which of course is always a wish from an audience. I am not sure if that really means that there is resolution, but they land somewhere identifiable at the end of each. Don’t you agree?

Nick Kaye: Yes they do, they just don’t expend themselves completely. So - in one sense - the end of the performance, where the traveller Rizwan Mirza is allowed through the border, is completely conclusive. He has told them everything. They have accepted it. They knew it all already anyway. So it is ok. This isn’t necessarily entirely what you would expect from that storyline. Then he passes through the border. So on one level it seems fine.

Marianne Weems: I am not sure that the conclusion is fine. The conclusion that you are 'free to go', free to travel, as long as you are willing to expose all of your information, isn’t fine. It’s clear that this man remains under surveillance and meanwhile he is dragging a huge amount of personal data behind him. We aren’t saying that this is fine, but we are saying that this is the state of affairs at this moment. We are all walking around with those trails of information floating behind us and that is where we wanted to leave the audience - to feel ultra-aware of that.


see also: data body | narrative architecture | rhythmic structure | story |


SUPER VISION credits

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Page last modified by nk Thu Feb 15/2007 07:45