philip lelyveld The world of entertainment technology

Robot Performance and Augmented Reality? Gray Area Fest Explores Art’s New Frontiers

Media, however, isn't quite there yet—though many technology-forward artists say that multi-sensory, immersive experiences are where its future is headed. That's what the Gray Area Festival, running July 25–28 at the Gray Area Theater and Pier 70, seeks to explore with a weekend of workshops, performances and installations from artists eager to embrace the latest technological tools.

The festival's biggest attraction is the U.S. premiere of the ISM Hexadome, an installation by the Institute of Sound and Music in Berlin. Presented at Pier 70, it's comprised of six 20-foot-tall screens and can fit about 200 people. Essentially, it's a 360-degree theater for showing audiovisual works by a wide variety of artists, including Radiohead's Thom Yorke, whose beat-driven, sci-fi new album Anima explores the concept of a techno-dystopia. (Barri, who handles Yorke's visuals for his tours, collaborated on the visual component of his Hexadome piece. )

The other major performance at the Gray Area Festival is Louis-Philippe Demers and Bill Vorn's Inferno, where audience members don "robot exoskeletons"—bulky mechanical suits that physically force their wearers to dance in time with the dark, industrial techno soundtrack.

"There’s definitely a trend in people wanting to have experiences in environments instead of objects. Really when you get down to it, this trend is more of a return," says Threw.

See the full story here: https://www.kqed.org/arts/13861697/robot-performance-and-augmented-reality-gray-area-fest-explores-arts-new-frontiers