an exploration of the difficulties of communicating in the digital age

and the ensuing fears of loneliness and isolation. 

 

 

 

 

artistic note

I am usually a man of many words, but this project led me to use little, both by choice and necessity. I therefore challenge myself to do the same as I archive this work to which I dedicated countless hours, most spent in silence. Words will never truly convey what I hope they could say.

As an endeavor, this piece is a reflection of my four years as a student of theater.

As a performance, it is a conversation between technology and man.

As a personal experience, it is a better understanding of what makes me who I am.

It took me half a year to realize that this is a personal story. But it's a personal story that I see everywhere, hidden in the fluorescent light of rooms with closed doors, or shadowed by the brightness of smartphone screens. It's a story about words or the absence thereof. It's a story about fear, about loneliness, about fighting with oneself. I am not criticizing technology. But like fire, it has sparked a change in the way we operate, in the way we think, in the way we exist. It has simplified myriad activities and it has questioned our understanding of what it means to be "social" beings. Text, audio, image, video; a constant stream of information, sent, read, recorded, seen, archived.

I therefore offer up a question to which I have no simple answer.

 

trailer edited by Alexandre Bagot
with music by The Mills Brothers & Alexandre Bagot

shot by Gergo Varga & the NYUAD Arts Center

performed at the NYUAD Arts Center

 
 

the team
Alexandre Bagot - Director / Performer / Set & Sound Design
Gergo Varga - Projection Designer / Editor
Lucas Olscamp - Dramaturge
Sarah Daher - Stage Manager / Voiceover

 special thanks

 Marika Niko, Tomi Tsunoda, Rubén Polendo, Catherine Coray, Andrew Riedemann, Walter Ryon, Judi Olson, Gaar Adams, Aysan Celik, Debra Levine, Andrea Arden Reese, Scandar Copti, João Menezes, Pierre Depaz, The Capstone Seminar, The NYUAD Theater Program, The Arts Center at NYUAD

and

all those who put up with me

I find communicating both incredibly easy and incredibly difficult.

I find it easy because I’m not afraid to speak to people, to ask personal questions, or to try and crack a joke, and I generally think that I’m successful at it.

I find it hard because apparently I’m usually not.