Performance
DIR. Constance Godbout
Simulacrum is an immersive performance that questions our perception of the body when the image becomes its condition of existence.
This project stems from an urgent desire to explore how we inhabit our bodies in a world saturated with simulations. We seek to create an experience that reveals the fractures and possibilities of an existence that has become indistinguishable from its reproduction.
Anchored in the notion of the simulacrum (a “copy of a copy” detached from any stable original), the performance explores the fantasy of a perfect multiplication of being and its collapse in reality. It bears witness to an awareness of the impact of technology on our perceptions, but also of how it can be used to better understand how our lived experience has changed. In a world where the image precedes reality, the work asks: does the body appear or disappear?
Two perpendicular faces of a cube covered in plastic (7' × 7') serve as projection surfaces. Two projectors display real-time content, doubling the performer's figure. A Time-of-Flight (ToF) camera captures the movement, while lighting effects generate a play of shadows, creating a zone of ambiguity where the origin of the gesture becomes indiscernible.
Sound acts as an immersive material, enveloping the space and amplifying the doubling. Devoid of rhythmic structure, it deprives the viewer of temporal markers and modulates the light intensity, the rhythm of the projections, and the frequency of the double's appearance. The body becomes the source, receiver, and disruptor of the diffuse soundscape, creating a cybernetic loop between gesture, image, and sound. This sensory ambiguity generates an expanded perception where presence dissolves into space.