PREMISE​

 

Swarm casts a lens into the lives of an extended family living in 2050. Incredible technologies promise infinite ways to connect and belong. Brain implants allow them to merge the physical world with digital augmentations. Mobile phones are of the past; people now access their inner-mind interface to send messages and telecommunicate. Cognitive enhancements offer superhuman abilities that create competitive advantages. Virtual worlds offer adventures, and the virtual property market is booming.

As the world habituates to biotechnology and its convenient trappings, the family becomes increasingly drawn into a whirlpool beyond their perception—one of emotion surveillance, perception management, and algorithmically steered deep-brain stimulation. Payment tiers and social credit systems emerge, spurring a human enhancement race, and a chasm grows between the haves and the have-nots. Within the Swarm family, enduring sibling rivalries erupt.

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The family already has an acutely unmet need for familial harmony and belonging. This starting point makes them vulnerable to utopic visions and ‘technologies as social saviours.’ At the end of Swarm, the family does finally achieve a form of cohesion and belonging—but at what cost?

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TREATMENT​

 

Imagine a lens swinging into a family home, listening in on their private interactions and moments, then retracting. Weeks pass. The lens again captures their inner sanctity, and so on. These familial vignettes will have a memory quality, linked through soundscape, shifting set pieces, and overlapping multimedia and augmented reality that helps convey passing time along with the drift in social and technological changes. The humour will come from the absurdity of the characters accepting increasingly invasive technologies in exchange for convenience and their desire to augment comforting illusions. Their human natures decline into surreal behaviours, which will be richly explored with playful abstractions of body language and dialogue.

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​My hope is to eventually have a foyer installation with information to reveal the stranger-than-fiction real-world scenarios and individuals that I’ve drawn from to inform the work.  This will allow the work to remain unfettered by its sources and deliver as a meaningful, humane arts experience.

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TECHNOLOGY

 

During the writing phase, it became apparent that on-stage augmented reality is essential for the audience's immersion into the story, but more critically, it will offer a visceral experience of mixed reality while the audience considers the questions driving the work:

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What could a further destabilised ‘shared reality’ feel like in future? How might society, industry—and self—be contributing to this destabilisation?

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While AI and neurotechnology will bring groundbreaking benefits, many sociologists and cultural theorists are concerned that tech such as non-therapeutic cognitive enhancements could exacerbate existing inequalities in employment, learning, and cultural participation. Swarm is a great vehicle to provoke much-needed questions, but it will also be a hybrid technology performance with on-stage Augmented Reality. As the characters descend into a world of mixed reality, the audience will too.

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PROJECT JOURNEY​

 

Swarm began as a seed project with the support of Geelong Arts Centre's Creative Engine program, Regional Arts Victoria's Quick Response Grant, and a Performing Lines Victoria Artist Residency (delivered by Geelong Arts Centre).

This support enabled mentoring sessions with Australian director Susie Dee as well as funding and venue space at GAC for a creative development in March 2024, which focussed on experimental physical performance modes to explore hyperreal physical gesturing and vocal work. The outcomes of this movement intensive, along with ongoing technology consultation, has fed into the existing script in terms of how the characters interact with augmented objects and why. Writer Melinda Chapman is currently developing the script. Swarm's creative team also comprises a creative technologist, score composer, and choreographer.