Serralves/Soopa, dvd+map, English, 2013

Live performance electronic music is an artform with quite a few decades of history. Its various embodiments have created a shared space with audiences, playing with sound, location and (almost inevitably now) visuals. Technologically sophisticated performances make mesmerizing use of screening techniques and devices, creating specific scenographies for individual works. But live performances can’t be completely disconnected from their intrinsic theatrical nature, so sometimes a more prominent physical role can significantly contribute to the shared space, creating a more intimate connection. Here is a performance with live music and visuals that also employs the strategic use of an actor supplying a narrative voice. It’s based on the J.G. Ballard novel “The Crystal World”, a symbolic story of a physician making his way deep into the jungle and coming to terms with an apocalyptic phenomenon that crystallises everything it touches. The readings (sometimes made using a tape player) of some extracts from the text create a profound experience, completed by the disquieting sounds and the cosmological and prismatic jungle environment. The sensory, verbal and visual forces are very well orchestrated, creating a tension between the narrated reality and dreams. The package also includes a real folded map to further explore the intersections between the jungle and the crystal worlds.