Yes, yes I’ve been away from the blog for a while. More to come on that note later.
Last week I had the opportunity to see the performance of SuperVision by the Builder’s Association and dBox at the Krannert Center Performing Arts Center, courtestsy of Mademoiselle Ford. Krannert is hoping to develop some new outreach efforts and as part of my attendance I agreed to write up a little summary.
SuperVision is an interesting mix of traditional theater with high-tech staging, focusing on the issue of data surveillance in “a post 9/11 world.” The staging itself was extremly innovative for this type of perfomance, neatling meshing together live performance with data projection, animation and video. In order to reveal the live performers behind some of the data projection the producers decided to place the computers that drive the show on stage. The desktops not only controlled the show, but were used by actors to that are then projected into the main stage. While innovative in its staging, the aesthetics of the set often resorted to cliche “computer-y” representations – wire frames, data cubes, fairly lifeless architecural rendering (where dBox got it’s start). To be fair this is a theatrical group and not Pixar and they are not information visualization experts.
The piece featured three different story arcs – one about an upper-middle class family who’s patriarch keeps them afloat by gaming the credit card system, a Indian business traveller harangued by passport security, and a Sri Lankan grandmother-daughter who stay in touch via video/web communication.
The piece had a disturbing, anxiety-producing feel to it, especially given my recent experiences in getting my passport renewed. (to be related in a future post). However I was most troubled by the tension between its documentary and artistic poles. On one hand, the piece felt a little like a Newsweek expose on data survallience – particularly by sharing audience demographics and purchasing patterns gleaned from credit card databases that most retailers have access to. SuperVision wanted to be earnest in presenting facts about how personal data can be collected, used and abused. At the same time it was an artistic piece with the intention of putting us on edge and creating that anxious emotional response. It left me wondering where the line is drawn between objective reporting and artistic effort. Documentaries usually have their own biases, slants, axes to grind but usually we know something about where they are coming from (or can be deduced by those of us who think about these things). I worry that some of the audience walked away believing that the more science-fiction aspects of SuperVision are in fact reality – that they were looking at an acurate “mirror of contemporary society” as suggested by director Marianne Weems in the talk-back session.
Of course my librarian hackles had been raised at that start when libaries were included in sources for data mining. In fact, The American Library Association Office of Intellectual Freedom has been at the forefront of opposition to the Patriot Act’s data collection provisions. I feel far safer checking something out of my library than purchasing it at Borders…or searching for it through MSN or Yahoo!.
Data mining and data integration is a topic that we should all be aware of and actively participating in as citizens. In that respect SuperVision contributes to a long tradition of art not necessarily providing an acurate and fair rendering of the world, but by throwing a spotlight on the less utopian aspects of technological advances. If anything, it is a piece that should get people thinking and talking about the issue. I recommend seeing it if it passes your way, particularly if you can haul along a few librarians.
