Review: Current/y

©️ Chen Yi Studio, Current/y

What are the infinite possibilities of a dystopic future, where life becomes a series of fragmented scenarios, much like a palette of algorithm-controlled feeds on a phone screen? Opening The Coronet Theatre’s Autumn/Winter programme, Current/y is an accomplished avant-garde digital art and contemporary dance production by Chen Yi Studio that captures the chaos of scroll culture and its impact. Taiwanese artist and director Chen Yi creates a dopamine-infused thrill ride, inviting the audience to stare into the sound and fury of the online attention economy, which takes up so much of reality and shapes our daily behaviours and belief systems.

The show opens on an empty stage, bare but for a large blank screen at the back. The anonymous protagonist, played by Tu Livier, discovers the birth of her digital double in the virtual world. Choreographed by Chou Kuan-Jou, Tu’s slightly eerie yet highly energised movement is captured live through XSENS motion capture sensors, which mirror her exact movement in the live moment. Alongside Tu's own avatar, a cast of fifteen further characters slowly assembles around her, all of them identical and born faceless. Tu’s solo performance mingles with the fifteen at different tempos, sometimes moving alongside them, sometimes against them.

As Tu’s journey unfolds, so does the dystopia. Through dance and spoken word, Tu goes through the many hells of the online attention economy, beginning with a hilariously fast-paced, almost camp livestream selling beauty products, driven by the algorithm’s relentless demand for the right metrics at every stage of the stream. Then the other avatars take over, competing for our attention with Taiwan’s political corruption and cryptocurrency scams, followed by heated, polarised gender debates in multiple threaded comments. The last bid for attention is online fortune-telling and a body-mind-spirit market mixed with cosmic energy, pitched at the deeply anxious who want to reach beyond the three-dimensional world and learn how cosmic forces might guide them through uncertain times. From the personal life of the beauty product, to sociopolitical debate and economic scams, and finally to the meditative and equally commercialised cosmic world, Tu passes through these facets that piece her reality together, while the other fifteen play multiple roles, sometimes in human shape, sometimes as fully outer-space avatars.

As both new media art and contemporary dance, Current/y is infused with striking visual imagery and an immersive soundscape that builds up the atmosphere very effectively, scene by scene. As Tu’s journey deepens, the world around her becomes less and less controllable. In one of the most arresting scenes, her avatar transforms into a non-human form of red flame dancing across the projected screen. Red floods the stage, not only the lighting and the flame but also the beams of laser from above. The music turns dark and techno, and from this point Tu’s avatar is no longer a human figure but can become any non-human character.

Despite the complexity of running live motion capture in co-ordination with pre-recorded avatars, Current/y strikes a subtle balance between overstimulating the senses and stimulating critical thought. The performance never lets itself be taken over by the technology that runs it. The message stays clear: we are caught in a turmoil of flooded feeds, information and noise, where every exit seems to lead to another commercialised route in the same game of competing for people’s time and attention. In that turmoil, we become part of the commercialised product too.

There are a few breathing, transitional moments when Tu and her avatar sit still, watching tranquil virtual scenes of mountains and birds, and flamingos flying across. Still, those moments are fleeting, and they appear fully colour-saturated, animated and artificial. The transition between scenes is carefully crafted through sound and imagery as an online scrolling experience, with one feed going up and the next following.

For an hour, Current/y exemplifies the doomscrolling loop with a dark sense of humour, along with its intense reshaping of our minds and our peace, where even peace is built in as body-mind-spirit content. Coming to the theatre to get away from the phone, only to encounter such an intense recreation of scrolling, is a great satire in itself. The 1990s debate about the value of a performance and about what ‘liveness’ means – whether live performance is ephemeral and unreproducible or has always been a product of mediation – now seems a rather binary argument. Now that liveness is so deeply mediated, the line between the physical and the virtual will only blur further.

Technology dismantles many pre-set binaries, but it also leaves so much noise that filtering becomes almost impossible. Instead of filtering that noise, Current/y invites all of it into the theatre and embraces it. It is immensely thrilling and entertaining, while projecting a deep concern about a world in which AI and algorithms take over human agency.

★★★★

For more information, please visit: https://www.thecoronettheatre.com/whats-on/chen-yi-current-y/

Credits

Concept / Director: Chen Yi
Choreography / Dramaturgy of performance: Chou Kuan-Jou
Performer: Tu Livier
Avatar Performers: Tu Livier, Chou Kuan-Jou
New Media & Visual Art: XTRUX (Su Po-Jui, Chiu Chen-En, Li Jyun-Jyue)
Music & Sound Design: Sheng
Character Voice: Chen Uray, Chou Kuan-Jou
Dramaturgy (Dialogue): Yang Yu-Chiao, Chen Uray, Chou Kuan-Jou, Tu Livier, Chen Yi
AI Interactive Visuals: Cheng Ko-Chun (Sonic Deadhorse)
3D Character Design: Chiu Chen-En, Lu Ssu-Han
Costume Design: Chen Ya-Chi
Stage Manager: Lin Ying-Chen
Lighting Design: Lin Ying-Chen
Project Managers: Yang Shu-Han, Wu Po-Shan
International Tour Manager: Yang Shu-Han
Production Companies: Chen Yi Studio, LuxuryLogic.Co
Co-production: Taiwan Contemporary Culture Lab (C-LAB)
Grant Sponsors: Ministry of Culture (Art and Technology Development Grant), C-LAB

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