Client:
commissioned by the Brown Arts Initiative of the Brown University
My Role:
Digital Installation Designer and Developer
Project Supported by:
The Brown Arts Initiative
Beyond Verification Team associated with the Digital Democracies Institute at Simon Fraser University in Canada
Canada 150 Research Chairs program and the Social Science and Humanities Research Council of Canada
Showcased at:
March 13, 2021 @ CultureHub Re-Fest 2021
February 10-14, 2021 @ Brown Arts Initiative, Brown University
Press Coverage:
Theatre Journal, Performing Left and Right, Johns Hopkins University Press, Volume 73, Number 3, September 2021
The Brown Daily Herald, “Left and Right or Being who/where you are” brings political performance to virtual platform
Emerson Today, Jucan’s Latest Piece Explores More Expansive Ways of Being Political
Project Site:
https://left-and-right.art/
https://ohyay.co/s/left-and-right
Design & Development Tool:
Adobe Premiere Pro / video editing
Ohyay Platform / digital performance space design and deployment
Full Credits:
Concept & Directing: Ioana B. Jucan
Actors:
Marcela Mancino, Patrick Elizalde, Fabiola Petri, Andra Jurj
Online Performance Environment Design:
Tong Wu,Yuguang Zhang, Nuntinee Tansrisakul
Theatrical Design: Marcela Mancino
Bot Design: Roopa Vasudevan
Bot Concept: Roopa Vasudevan, Anthony Burton
Choreography: Adriana Barza
Sound Design: Peter Bussigel
Production Manager: Madeline Greenberg
Dramaturgy: Melody Devries
Performance Consultants:
Wendy Hui Kyong Chun, Alex Juhasz, and the Beyond Verification Team associated with the Digital Democracies Institute (SFU)
About the performance: In this time of intense divisions, a left partisan and a right partisan speaking with each other seems like an impossible conversation - or, at least, a conversation that is impossible to have meaningfully on certain so-called “hot-button” topics and complex realities, such as the COVID-19 pandemic or immigration.
This devised, interactive online multimedia performance stages scenes that feature such conversations … performed by both human actors and bots. The human and machinic actors play different characters that embody, complicate, and deconstruct different types of performative, prescribed political identities on the left-right spectrum (approached with a US-focus but through a transnational lens). These political identities are shown to be not static or unalterable, rather, the result of relational, performative processes that occur over time and with technology. Theatrically playing with(in) these processes, Left and Right aims to call forth more capacious ways of being - and being political.
Photos from the performance: 
My delivery as the digital designer and developerTo design the digital environment for the show, the digital design and development team utilize a platform called "Ohyay", which supports the realization of image and video-based visual manipulation and the construction of a highly customizable digital stage in various ways.
The performance is among the first-of-its-kind for a production that embraces the online component as a core asset and builds the theatrical experience around it.
We the designers take advantage of the fact that the characters are presented to the audience as live feeds, which makes it possible for us to alter the actors' presence by applying live visual manipulation to their feeds along with various forms of the layout
The design for the show aims to develop a dynamic relationship between the performer streams and the digital elements that serve as the props on the digital stage. The curated layout, movement, and interaction between the two on the digital stage construct a theater language of the digital age that not only helps with the unfolding of the story but also enduing performers a digital performative existence that's not subject to their physical restrictions.
Case Example - Overlaying video feeds
Actor Andra and Fabiola together perform the character "Mara" in the show. When emphasizing their oneness as "Mara", we overlay the actors' feeds on top of each other, and through adjusting the opacity of their feeds, we could highlight different sides of the characteristics of the role "Mara" performed by the two actors.
Actors Fabiola Petri and Andra Jurj open the third scene with overlaid live feeds
Case Example - applying live HSV adjustment
Another visual manipulation we've designed for the show is to apply HSV (Hue Saturation Value) filters to the actor feeds, which helps to emphasize and elevate the atmosphere of distortion and disorientation for specific scenes.
Actors Marcela Mancino, Patrick Elizalde, Fabiola Petri, Andra Jurj dance with designers adjust their hue saturation value in real-time
Case Example - recreating sense of physical experience on digital space
When presenting the monologue of actors answering quiz questions, the screenshots of quiz questions become tangible blocks that are actually taking up the performance space.
Actors Marcela Mancino and Patrick Elizalde respond to quiz questions in choreography move
Case Example - modifying the position and size of video feeds
When indicating the transition from one conversation to the other, we conduct live layout change in which performer streams will be resized and rearranged accordingly to imply the inner connections, orders, and hierarchy among actors.
the stage transforms from a lecture scene into a profile scene
Case Example - creating 3D effects on a 2D stage
We utilize the layering of digital elements to create a sense of 3D space out of the flat 2d digital stage, placing actors together on a sofa, and pulling them in and out of a TV screen to create dramatic visual effects.
Actor Andra Jurj disappears from a video clip and reappears on the sofa together with actors Marcela Mancino, Patrick Elizalde, Fabiola Petri