From Light to Dirt with Heart and Trust
So since 2/3rds of you are new here as of Starcruiser rant, welcome and thank you for joining! If you haven’t looked at the rest of the posts, this is basically Nick’s way of pushing reviews and upcoming events in immersive and music to you, so expect less long thought pieces and more hot takes. Of course, given that I got five times the views on that thought piece than anything else I’ve done, I might do more if the whim takes me. Not that it was a lot — we’re still only talking about 1500 views overall — but as I’m not trying to become internet famous, I’ll just keep doing this the way I like, which is creating a tight community of smart people interested in immersive-y cool things and getting to share what I see.
By the way, if you’re wondering how to be a more productive member of said community, there are a couple of things you could do. I am very thankful to the 5 people who have become full-fledged paying members of the site, and that is of course welcome, but this is not my job, so don’t put yourself out there unless you really feel it. But what costs you nothing is sharing news with me. As you probably know, NYC is huge and everything drowns in it. There’s no way I alone can find everything that’s happening in the city that’s FOMO-central, and while NoPro (which you should support) gives me most of my content, they don’t have eyes everywhere either. So if you hear about something that you think fits this newsletter, let me know. Andrew for example has been great about letting me know about things they are following and some of them have been new adds to the listing. Don’t worry that I may have heard of them already; if I didn’t love talking about immersive, I wouldn’t spend my spare time here.
Alright, on to the good stuff. I have two new reviews below and then a few immersive and concert events I’m planning on attending.
Immersive Reviews
Inside Light - This was a 5-hour marathon of excerpts from intros and outro pieces of Stockhausen’s Licht opera, a 29-hour 7-opera cycle of trippy, trippy stuff. The show at Park Ave Armory used a video screen and stage lighting to create a visualizer effect for the music. I would call this a mixed experience. There were definitely highs. The music itself was terrific - Stockhausen is a great composer and the use of human voices in the work was really striking. When all the elements came together, as in Mittwochs-Gruss, it was transportive. But the video screen was very deliberately non-narrative and there’s only so much you can do with swiveling mounted lights in terms of variety, so at times the visual effects just felt like a screensaver timed to music. I’m glad I saw it to experience the high points, but I’m left thinking I would much rather have just seen the opera itself. Seriously, though, check out the plot of Licht. It’s nuts.
Tribeca Immersive - The Tribeca festival typically has an immersive component of VR and AR work, but this year, they partnered with Mercer Labs to create work for that new media museum. The result was kind of underwhelming. Mercer Labs has very specific types of technical installations, including projection walls, a 4D sound room, and a network of thousands of LEDs. New work was commissioned for all of these spaces, but having seen the original Mercer Lab work, I honestly couldn’t tell the difference in most cases. The giant projection mapped room was different content, but not in a way that really changed my experience. The LED room was the most profound change and I liked that piece, but every other installation could have been swapped for the standard one without me noticing. It’s making me consider how much one is experiencing the technology and how much one is experiencing the art there. That said, Mercer Labs is still interesting to see, so you could go during Tribeca or just wait. It’s basically the same thing either way.
Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha - I’m realizing I never actually pushed my longer review to you, so here it is. The show is touring, and if you can catch it, don’t read my words about it. Just go see it. But if that ship has sailed, you should know there’s a good chance I’ll be talking about it on a podcast soon.
Upcoming Immersive
There are two events in June and a few in July I’m doing and you are as always welcome to join me.
The Amazing Doctor She Medicine Show - This is a comedy interactive play exploring the misogynist history of medicine and quackery. One of the brains behind this is Pheobe Books, who is a very smart human about immersive, and I’ve seen a very early draft previously that was interesting. I’m going on June 25th. It’s $15 at W17th street if it’s up your alley.
Murder in La La Land - A murder mystery variant where the audience solves the crime that explicitly promises not to be “ the typical lame, pun-laden murder mysteries of the past.” I now know that’s it’s by Live In Theater who have experience with this kind of work. It’s $75, running through July and August, at Brooklyn Art Haus. I’m going to get my ticket early next week, so if you want to go too, I’ll coordinate with you.
DIRT - An interactive play about imagining a response to the disappearance of the East River where the audience tries to become the mayor to determine what to do with the territory. I’ve heard some interesting things, but I can’t vouch for it personally. Of course, this is EXACTLY the kind of thing I have to do for research, so anyone who’s interested is very welcome to join. It runs at the Tank from July 6th through 14th for $35. Another one I’m going to get tickets to next week, so let me know if you’re in and we’ll schedule.
My Heart Goes Zoom (analog) - This is the real-world version of the previous on-line show by the truly brilliant Siobhan O'Loughlin, veteran of the immersive world and maker of such incredible works as Broken Bone Bathtub and Every Day I’ll Hope. My Heart Goes Zoom is the story of how you do (or do you?) fall in love over video conference. I loved this piece in its digital form, and I trust Siobhan fully to bring that joy and polish the live show. It pains me to say I almost certainly can’t make it in person that day, but you definitely should. $20 at the door at Caveat, or you can watch it the original way on your computer for $12. Go see one of the OG greats live.
Life and Trust - The show has announced it’s officially opening on August 1st. I’m seeing a preview with a bunch of people on June 30th. Feel free to join, but keep this on the radar regardless, because the Sleep No More fanatics are already buzzing about it, for what that’s worth.
Concerts
I’m kind of shocked that Celebrate Brooklyn and Summerstage are both pretty weak this year, but there are a couple of shows I definitely want to see now and in the future.
Control Top, Union Pool, July 27th, $20 - Boy do I love me some high energy political punk music. If it’s your jam, you can’t beat the price. And tell me you don’t have room for this kind of energy.
Caribou, Avant Gardner, Nov 21, $55 - I don’t know how to convince you to see this band live. I don’t want to overhype it, but seriously, Caribou live is in my top five concerts of my entire life. They are a terrific show, for example doing this with an actual drummer. Don’t miss it. Please.
That’s it for now. Next update will be post Life and Trust, so get ready for the next big thing in masked immersive.