The performance ‘The Zone’ deals with the possibility – and the conditions – of intimacy in encounters between people who are at a great physical distance. The telematic performance invites the audience to a 1-to-1 encounter with a remote actress, Steffi. At first glance, the project appears paradoxical, as intimacy is most often addressed through proxemics, i.e. through its spatial dimension: intimacy implies proximity. ‘The Zone’ combines the two physical stage spaces (for performer and participant respectively) with a virtual telematic reality (as a place for algorithmic processes and data transfer) in such a way that intimate encounters become possible through immersion and heightened tele-presence experiences. In addition to current streaming technologies, a number of applications are used from the field of Extended Reality XR, which have only rarely been applied in telematic contexts so far: volumetric live video, 3D laser scan, spatial audio in real-time and 6 Dimensions of Freedom, motion capture, video mapping on a screenbased handheld (tablet).
These applications have been utilized for telematic configurations in many years of research at the Institute for Computer Music and Sound Technology at the Zurich University of the Arts. They allow the design of a tele-immersive (telemersive) environment. The audience and the performer, Steffi, interact live in an extended telemersive reality created with the help of these XR technologies, accessible via corresponding interfaces, in which forms of telepresence – as an ‘illusion of a place’ – are complemented by forms of intimacy. We call the feeling of relational intimacy with a person transmitted from afar in real time ‘hyperintimacy’ – an enhanced form of intimacy that arises despite better knowledge of the artificial situation and always remains in a precarious, fragile state. The presentation highlights some aesthetic and technical foundations of ‘The Zone’.
