Cabin Fever PROTOTYPE by Esmeralda Conde Ruiz
Presented in association with the Isabel Bader Centre for the Performing Arts
Cabin Fever PROTOTYPE is a new 24-hour audiovisual artwork in development by Esmeralda Conde Ruiz that uses Zoom as an instrument and a canvas for live digital performance. First conceived in early 2020 lockdown in London, UK, the work explores vulnerability and pandemic dreaming. You are invited to drift in and out of the Cabin Fever PROTOTYPE broadcast, even leave it playing as you sleep and begin to dream yourself.
Cabin Fever PROTOTYPE is composed for an ensemble of voices, domestic sounds and Zoom. Every hour in this durational PROTOTYPE performance singers softly share a real pandemic dream collected from around the world, punctuating long dreamlike silences in between. We hear a new language each hour as Conde Ruiz leads us on a journey through 24 of the world’s time zones visiting dreamers as they sleep. In this work the software itself becomes an active part of the ensemble as Conde Ruiz explores the sonic potential of the virtual space, creatively playing with the latency and parameters of the technology. Singers’ voices hover at the edge of distortion, as familiar noises from our homes join in the performance. The unexpected is embraced—whose voice will Zoom choose to highlight, whose will be suppressed or fractured?
For this PROTOTYPE performance, Conde Ruiz has collaborated with Counterpoint, the creative studio of Samuel Diggins and Tero Parviainan to replace the familiar Zoom grid with a generative digital mosaic of ever-changing colour. The colours seen will each represent a different group of singers in a different location around the world. Although we hear the singers’ voices, we never see them. We are kept suspended in a dream state, together but still apart.
To create the final work, due to premiere in Spring 2022, Esmeralda and team are inviting 2,500 singers from over 100 countries to participate in the 24-hour live online performance. The piece will travel around the globe in real-time, shifting time zones every hour as each group of singers shares one pandemic dream before the next group takes over, performing from another place entirely. As the baton is passed internationally between singers, the languages and sounds will change and singers will manually cover their cameras to create a mosaic of colour. Cabin Fever connects across cultures and borders and asks what the world’s collective subconscious shares whilst dreaming during the pandemic.
Credits:
Esmeralda Conde Ruiz, Artistic Concept, Music and Libretto
Counterpoint: Samuel Diggins & Tero Parviainen, Visual Development
Eira Szadurski, Chloë Richardson & Karen Sutton, Production
Performed by:
E Ensemble: Renata Adamcova, Vicky Annand, Alison Buckley, Madeleine Buckley, Nick Buckley, Christiane, Candis Litsey, Belén Durán, Allan Gardam, Noriko Gregory, Simon Hearn, Jane Higginbottom, Janie Lucchese, Alison Monaghan, Javier Navarro, Ulrike Siemann.
Walthamstow Voices Community Choir: Edenia Padayao, Mark Sapaen Watan, Averil Pooten Watan, Jane Bugnosen.
Cork School of Music: Ciara McCarthy, Vivienne Sayers, Ellen Bolger, Perseus O’Brien
The Dresden Philharmonic Choir.
And Richard Ng’ang’a, Janice Lyayuka, Amrita Ghosh, Kate Hamlin, Jonathan Hammonds, Erik Ostwald, Aino Liski, Anna Liski, Anja Liski , Trang Nguyen Lidgett, Everton L de Barros, Belinda Calaguas, Denis Khomyshin, Adel Alabd, Claudia, Harper, Ruby, Nina and Olivia
Pandemic dreams and libretto support from:
UCL Lockdown Dreams: Jake Clwyd Roberts, Sleep and Dream Database: Kelly Bulkeley, Ph.D., Pandemic Dreams Archive: Fabiane M. Borges, Lívia Diniz, Deirdre Leigh Barrett Ph.D., Syokau Mutonga, Levi Wataka, Amrita Ghosh, E Ensemble & the Cabin Fever Team
With thanks to:
Prof Gunter Berger, Maria Judge, Andy Ingamells, Klara Schneider, Chris Fite-Wassilak, Anne Tallentire, William Hammonds, Susie and Jonathan Hammonds, Anne Tanaka, Barbara Morgenstern, Javier Ruiz, James Naylor, Walthamstow Voices Community Choir, Levi Wataka, Yoshimi Gregory, Jono Palmer, Oliver Warren, Nina Klein, Simon Wilson, Angharad Cooper, Alison Furnham, Sarah Richards, Elaine Gibson-Bolton, Andre Cobb, Edward Smith, Claudia Kramer, Hannah Maley, Ilka Handreg, Kristina Kramer, Linus Bickmann, Georgina Riel-Waabishki Mukwa Kwe, Vasily Knyazev and the Kamchatka Philharmonic Choir the team at FOLDA and everyone who shared dreams online.
The Cabin Fever PROTOTYPE performance is presented by FOLDA with support from SPAIN arts and culture and the Embassy of Spain.
Presented in association with:
With support from:
