The once and future
Project Website
Project Description
Contemplating our bodies and the borders between us, geographically, physically, spiritually, The Once and Future is meant as a sensuous proposal to the ways humanity can be, and the ways by which we can learn new ways of being – finding kinships and intimacies between ourselves and our non-human peers.
Through cinema, through music, through lasers, through performance, the work explores the visceral nature of multidisciplinary performance, capturing an essential element of living and existing together. Over the course of 75 minutes, we see a kaleidoscopic impression of life on Earth, interpreted simultaneously by ourselves as audience and a ‘higher power’ AI system performed by a novel laser tracking choreography.
The project began as a multidisciplinary research collaboration within HKBU involving exceptional external institutional partners like the Berliner Philharmoniker, the Berlin Film Festival, and Sony CSL Paris. After the initial FNRA grant, the project attracted significant interest and support from the LCSD (over HK$2,000,000), Arts House Limited (a co-commission totaling over HK$2,000,000), and the Singapore National Arts Council (HK$150,000). In seeking to combine narratives of journey in terms of human and post-human travelogue, The Once and Future asks questions of what makes artificial intelligence ‘artificial’ and how our own humanity is defined in an age where technology increasingly defines our existence.
The research and creative teams also generated an interactive video curated by French art director Xavier Reyé (whose work spans music videos for Stromae and ads for Nike) that debuted on the LCSD’s Renew Vision online platform, called Project Labyrinth, the first in a series of ‘video game’-like spinoffs of live events where the audience member gets to direct the narrative flow. The live work itself premiered in Singapore as the signature event of the 2022 Singapore International Festival of Arts, where it was called “the most stunning and divisive work at the festival” (Business Times). It was then featured in Hong Kong at the Hong Kong Cultural Centre as part of New Vision Arts Festival and ASIA+ and will debut at the Digitize me! Festival in Antwerp, Belgium in 2025.
Media Coverage
- HKSAR PR Channel: https://www.info.gov.hk/gia/general/202310/12/P2023101200419.htm
- South China Morning Post Preview: https://www.scmp.com/native/lifestyle/arts-culture/topics/performing-arts-cutting-edge/article/3231263/complexities-humanity-be-explored-through-dance-film-and-lasers-hong-kongs-new-vision-arts-festival
- Straits Times: https://www.straitstimes.com/life/arts/sifa-2022-lasers-loneliness-and-a-lofty-mind-in-the-once-and-future
- Business Times, Singapore: http://tof.eugenebirman.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/08/TOF-Review-Business-Times-Singapore.jpg
Project Investigator
Dr Eugene Alexander BIRMAN (Academy of Music)
Project Coordinator
Dr Robert John NEATHER (Academy of Language and Culture)
Funding/Award
- Leisure and Cultural Services Department, the HKSAR Government - LCSD New Vision Arts Festival
- Arts House Limited - Singapore International Festival of Arts
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