(Paranoid Shelter) - Globale Surveillance

By fabric | ch

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Last week I published a post about Paranoid Shelter, a recent architectural installation by fabric | ch that deals with "smartness", sensing and surveillance. As explained then, this new work can be displayed on its own, as a study on the "contemporary shelter" that articulates the notions of (the nearly fantasized) shelter and the one of surveillance. But this installation or "architectural device" was also created with a collaborative context in mind.

This collaboration, or at lest the first one, was for a theatrical: Globale Surveillance, for which we worked on the scenography and co-initiated the project. This is a project and performance-like theatrical staged by Eric Sadin, a french essayist and writer, based on the books Globale Paranoïa (Éditions Les Petits Matins, 2009) --fiction-- & Surveillance Globale (Climats/Flammarion, 2009) --theory--, both written by him. NOhista (sound and video design) as well as Abigail Fowler (light design) joined the team to finalize the project as well, of course, as the two comedians, Laure Wolf and Gurshad Shaeman.

Rehearsals and opening of Globale Surveillance were last February and March in Caen (France), at the Comédie de Caen-Centre Dramatique National de Normandie (CDN). The play should travel to Paris for the new theater season (12-13) and then hopefully to other cities in France and Switzerland, before, eventually to travel further away and in english.

GLOBALE SURVEILLANCE

About the play (notice from the Comédie de Caen):

We live in a world under surveillance, no one would dispute that point anymore. But what configurations do the new devices of control take, in what forms and in which way are they different from the practices of the last century? How do they alter our relationship to the world and to the others? Do they reach the point of threatening the right to privacy? Globale Surveillance sets up an hyper-monitored zone, within which actors and spectators are subject to quantities of traceability procedures, in this case made visible, conversely many scary mechanisms at work daily that are affected by the phenomenon of invisibility.

Text & staging : Éric Sadin

Scenic architecture, responsive spatial device : fabric | ch

Sound & video design : Nohista

Light design : Abigail Fowler

Comedians : Laure Wolf & Gurshad Shaheman

Paranoid Shelter on stage during the play with the two comedians (Laure Wolf, Gurshad Shaeman), CDN (Centre Dramatique National) / ESAM of Caen in France.

GLOBALE SURVEILLANCE from Bruno Ribeiro on Vimeo.

A compressed preview and short of the play by NOhista.

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Pictures: Nicolas Besson, Patrick Keller, Alban Van Wassenhove

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Co-production: Comédie de Caen-Centre Dramatique National de Normandie (CDN), France; Ecole supérieure d'arts et médias de Caen (ESAM), France.

With the support of: DICRéAM, France; Office Fédérale de la Culture, Swirtzerland; Pro Helvetia, Switzerland; Ville de Lausanne, Switzerland and Etat de Vaud (Switzerland).

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