ThoughtGallery.org > Ying Liu: Playdate

Ying Liu: Playdate

Saturday, April 6th at 2pm, multimedia artist and experimental hodgepodge-ist Ying Liu opens her 2019 ISSUE residency with the premiere of PLAYDATE, a hyper-cellphone oriented performance combining theater and happenings, exploring themes of urban interconnectivity. The performance follows her neighborhood-wide theatrical workshop in Seattle’s Capitol Hill, YING OF THE HILL (presented by Northwest Film Forum), and the release of MAKE A FOUNTAIN, a book-length experimental report accompanying her three-episode play HANG OUT, that took place at Sara D. Roosevelt Park in Manhattan’s Chinatown.

PLAYDATE is an outdoor play in and about the Special Downtown Brooklyn District (DB) that documents a cast of roving players (documented by GoPro cameras) as they perform sequenced performative tasks which include dealing with local businesses, public facilities, and various contingencies. At 22 Boerum, the audience witnesses a projection of a screen mirroring the device of a lone “cellphone performer” that showcases the players’ activities through social media streams and GPS location tracking. Throughout, the cellphone performer runs their own personal and professional digital errands while intermittently checking in on the cast. Ying states: “We live in a time where it’s possible to watch an entire feature film on a cellphone in broad daylight, looking down”; she asks, “how might this change how long-existing artistic forms, like soliloquies in theater, are presented today?”

“If life is propelled by some kind of drive and philosophy for survival, then my theater, a form that imitates life, has performers commit to a trajectory that is creatively conceived and sequenced.” Featuring a cast of a dozen players found through personal connections, craigslist ads, street stands, and ISSUE’s social media posts, the performers livestream to social media sporadically while engaging in and committing to their unique, sequenced actions throughout the neighborhood for about an hour and a half. They will set out from and return back to ISSUE. Attendees are encouraged to stay throughout the entire performance but should feel free to arrive and depart at any time.

As a whole Ying Liu’s residency explores the idea of “setting the audience free, physically,” and probes what alternative viewing models could look like. Ying notes, “In a traditional performance or cinema setting there’s a structure that asks for audience investment and obligation (to see and hear), emotionally, empathetically and physically” — what she refers to as a FOUNTAIN model. “In order to not get wet, the observer has a tendency to stay outside. As a viewer, I frequently find myself toggling between the splash and non-splash zones…”

PLAYDATE is developed as part of Lower Manhattan Cultural Council’s Workspace Program 2018-19 (https://lmcc.net/) and ISSUE’s 2019 Artist-In-Residence program.

Keith Connolly, CEO
Jack Skaggs, COO
Eli Coplan, CTO
Street Outreach: Troy Schipdam, Nicole Huang, Jesus Benavente and Peter Shapiro











When: Sat., Apr. 6, 2019 at 2:00 pm
Where: ISSUE Project Room
110 Livingston St.
718-330-0313
Price: Free
Buy tickets/get more info now
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Saturday, April 6th at 2pm, multimedia artist and experimental hodgepodge-ist Ying Liu opens her 2019 ISSUE residency with the premiere of PLAYDATE, a hyper-cellphone oriented performance combining theater and happenings, exploring themes of urban interconnectivity. The performance follows her neighborhood-wide theatrical workshop in Seattle’s Capitol Hill, YING OF THE HILL (presented by Northwest Film Forum), and the release of MAKE A FOUNTAIN, a book-length experimental report accompanying her three-episode play HANG OUT, that took place at Sara D. Roosevelt Park in Manhattan’s Chinatown.

PLAYDATE is an outdoor play in and about the Special Downtown Brooklyn District (DB) that documents a cast of roving players (documented by GoPro cameras) as they perform sequenced performative tasks which include dealing with local businesses, public facilities, and various contingencies. At 22 Boerum, the audience witnesses a projection of a screen mirroring the device of a lone “cellphone performer” that showcases the players’ activities through social media streams and GPS location tracking. Throughout, the cellphone performer runs their own personal and professional digital errands while intermittently checking in on the cast. Ying states: “We live in a time where it’s possible to watch an entire feature film on a cellphone in broad daylight, looking down”; she asks, “how might this change how long-existing artistic forms, like soliloquies in theater, are presented today?”

“If life is propelled by some kind of drive and philosophy for survival, then my theater, a form that imitates life, has performers commit to a trajectory that is creatively conceived and sequenced.” Featuring a cast of a dozen players found through personal connections, craigslist ads, street stands, and ISSUE’s social media posts, the performers livestream to social media sporadically while engaging in and committing to their unique, sequenced actions throughout the neighborhood for about an hour and a half. They will set out from and return back to ISSUE. Attendees are encouraged to stay throughout the entire performance but should feel free to arrive and depart at any time.

As a whole Ying Liu’s residency explores the idea of “setting the audience free, physically,” and probes what alternative viewing models could look like. Ying notes, “In a traditional performance or cinema setting there’s a structure that asks for audience investment and obligation (to see and hear), emotionally, empathetically and physically” — what she refers to as a FOUNTAIN model. “In order to not get wet, the observer has a tendency to stay outside. As a viewer, I frequently find myself toggling between the splash and non-splash zones…”

PLAYDATE is developed as part of Lower Manhattan Cultural Council’s Workspace Program 2018-19 (https://lmcc.net/) and ISSUE’s 2019 Artist-In-Residence program.

Keith Connolly, CEO
Jack Skaggs, COO
Eli Coplan, CTO
Street Outreach: Troy Schipdam, Nicole Huang, Jesus Benavente and Peter Shapiro

Buy tickets/get more info now