Culturehub: Hi-Fi | Wi-Fi | Sci-Fi
La MaMa and Culturehub present
Hi-Fi | Wi-Fi | Sci-Fi
Predictions Past Present and Future
In association with the Seoul Institute of the Arts
Written by Robert Patrick
Directed by Billy Clark and Jason Trucco
In the 1960s and 1970s, playwright Robert Patrick led an underground theatre movement that questioned the future through a series of quirky, minimalist science fiction plays. For La MaMa’s 55th season, CultureHub and the Seoul Institute of the Arts re-stage these original plays by one of La MaMa’s first playwrights, not as vintage nostalgia, but as startlingly contemporary works far ahead of their time:
Action an emerging and an established writer are caught in a feedback loop leaving it unclear who is generating who.
Camera Obscura features two lovers trying to connect through networked screens, resulting in crossed questions, crooked answers, and a surprise resolution.
All In The Mind previews a world where individual consciousness has been interconnected into a collective web of telepathic communication.
Simultaneous Transmissions is a short play about us and them. Two families face off and due to their mistrust and fear of each other their sons are sent into battle to pay the ultimate price. The script is funny, absurd and painfully relevant.
Anything Is Plausible is a new, world-premiere comedic monologue delivered by an actor who may or may not be a virtual creation. In a world where any actor can be replaced by computer generated animations.
Hi-Fi | Wi-Fi | Sci-Fi is a fragile and risky research project, performed live across time zones and international borders, between broadcast studios and bedrooms. These speculative plays, once science fiction, now serve as an uncannily accurate prediction of our screen-saturated world and call into question what the theatre of the future might look like. Witty, urbane, and sexy, you’ll laugh like hell and see our digital lives in a whole new light.
PLEASE NOTE: This is not a seated performance; the audience moves about the performance space throughout the piece. Running time is one hour.
CultureHub is an incubator for creativity focused on the intersection of art and technology. We connect artists from diverse disciplines and cultures and provide them with environments in which to collaborate, experiment and explore. We serve local and global communities by providing an open space for creative research, artistic exchange and learning. CultureHub was founded in 2009 in partnership with La MaMa Experimental Theatre Club in New York City and the Seoul Institute of the Arts in Korea.
Robert Patrick (Playwright) started producing plays at La MaMa in 1965 under the artistic commission of Ellen Stewart. By 1972 Samuel French dubbed him “New York’s Most Produced Playwright.” Bob was a leader in the Off-Broadway theater movement and had his play Kennedy’s Children produced on Broadway in 1975, which is set for revival this year.
CultureHub
CultureHub pushes the boundaries of artistic collaboration and experimentation as an incubator for creativity focused on the intersection of art and technology. We serve local and global communities by providing an open space for creative research, artistic exchange and learning.
