SPY

A performance project for Internet, dance, theater, video.
Duration 35mn, 2008.

Artistic conception:
Siegfried Canto, Magali Desbazeille and Valéry Volf
Text: Gilles Leroy
Performance: Valéry Volf
Lighting: Renaud Lagier
Graphic design: Julie Edler
Max/msp jitter programming: Jérôme Tuncer
Set building and lighting engineer: Franck Delâtre
Computer programming: Sébastien Courvoisier
Translation: Maura Pollin

About what you look for when you type a word, what others look for, what can be found. It is about things nobody looks for and about what everybody looks for at the same time… or the keywords of a Search Engine in Real-time.

Description

SPY is a trio made up of a protagonist (the performer) and two operators (the sound designer and the image designerToday, 50% of the population of the Western world is connected to Internet. Every month, over 2.7 billion search requests are made on Google. SPY exposes Internet users’ desires through the enquiries they make on search engines. Those searches are displayed real-time during the performance.

Festival Temps d’Image / Arte, à la Ferme Du Buisson, octobre 2008

Text live extract:

“What are you looking for? On the screen, there?
Everyone’s looking for something. Everyone.
People look for their keys in their pockets, they look for their cars in parking lots, they look for a spot, they look for an occupation, they look for a job, they look for meaning here on Earth, a place in the sun, they seek fortune, they look for trouble, they look for a way, they search and they search. They look for the solution to a sudoku, they look for solutions to all their problems…” Gilles Leroy.

Producer: Made In Productions

Coproduction: TEMPS D’IMAGES 2008 / La Ferme du Buisson, Scène Nationale de Marne-la-Vallée, DICRéAM.

Residencies: Le Fresnoy – Studio national des Arts contemporains de Tourcoing ;
La Chartreuse de Villeneuve-lez-Avignon ; Centre national des Écritures du spectacle.

Special thanks to the Centre National de la Danse for use of their studio, and to the Associations Artère and Soundpixel for the use of their equipment.

Voices: Emir Azaiez, Paul Barrier, Agathe Berman, Anne Beaumond, Max Cuccarro, Olivier Mansard, Pierre Pollin, Victor Reiltinger-Desbazeille, Lara Suyeux, Kylie Walters.

Thanks to: Clarisse Bardiot, Véronique Bellin, Sandrine Bouchetal, Francis Bras, Alice Chambas, Olivier Cousin, Joseph David, Tom Daniëls, Agnès Fierobe, Elena Fokina, Thomas Fougeirol, Emilie Houdent, Sébastien Kott, Eric Lassalle, Estelle Pagès, Michel Pages, Catherine Perret, Pierre Reitlinger, Alban Rouge, Caroline Schirman, Helder Seabra, Michel Serres, Josette Sultan, Mathieu Tank, Alexandre and Marc Valenti.