Global Mode > @ ISSUE Project Room

ISSUE and Harvestworks are pleased to stream a commissioned residency project from multidisciplinary artist Eva Davidova, featuring Mx. Oops as Prometheus Herding PigGooses, Heather Mo’Witz as Narcissus and Drowning Animals, and Naicha Diaby as Cassandra > Low Witness Objects. Sound by Matthew D. Gantt. XR Interactions and development by Danielle McPhatter.

Global Mode > is an interactive, experimental online performance on ecological disaster, inertia, and manipulation of information. Occupying three reimagined mythological stories: Prometheus Herding PigGooses; Narcissus and Drowning Animals; and Cassandra > Low Witness Objects; the virtual space is presented as a playground, in which to find agency in uncertainty, reconfigure relationships with “others,” and invent new actions. Amidst immense immersive flowers, falling heads, cement landscapes and dirty waters, the audience is invited to collectively affect the performance, and to explore open-ended, fluid roles crisscrossing between themselves, virtual 3D Animals, and the performers from the past.

The non-linear world of Global Mode > has no ultimate “goals,” nor wins or losses. Rather, it compels an almost unconscious, immediate set of intentions and actions: a response and activity in the midst of blindness to evident horrors, predictable disasters, and baffling cruelty. Involving viewers through unscripted movements and intuitive gestures, the performance explores the instability of our actions, their unintentional outcomes, and the continuous/constant mediation these actions are subject to.

Playing with a paradox, Davidova imagines us as being built by our descendants (human or cyborg), and poses a question: “If we are the games our children will program one day, can we influence the code they are writing?”

“Prometheus Herding PigGooses” featuring Mx. Oops

Featuring: Naicha Diaby, Mx. Oops, and Heather Mo’WitzOriginal sound: Matthew D. Gantt

Interactions design & XR development: Danielle McPhatter

Second Camera: Daniela Kostova

Motion Capture: NYU Tandon School of Engineering Marcel Oliver-Rose Truxillo

Photo-scanning: Lenscloud

The artist would like to thank the Harvestworks & ISSUE teams, the engagement and support of the NOKIA Bell Labs staff —including Howard Huang—and to the NYU Tandon School of Engineering staff—including R.Luke DuBois, Todd Bryant, and Kat Sullivan—to Tin Nguyen, Ivin Ballen, Xavier Ryan, and all the people who have made this project possible.

This is the fifth year in an ongoing program collaboration between ISSUE Project Room and Harvestworks, two organizations that are committed to supporting the creation and presentation of experimental performance practices while sharing resources.

Following from Harvestworks Technology Immersion Program, Eva Davidova’s Global Mode > has been supported by ISSUE via an ongoing residency, in collaboration with the NYU Tandon School of Engineering Integrated Digital Media Motion Capture Lab plus mentorship with NOKIA Bells Labs engineers. ISSUE’s residence program provides New York-based emerging artists with support, offering artists access to facilities, equipment, documentation, pr/marketing, curatorial and technical expertise to develop and present significant new works, reach the next stage in their artistic development, and gain exposure to a broad public audience.