OOTFest25 (UN)SEEN: Performances and Installations — A Vivid Tapestry of Embodiment and Technology

The installations and performances at OOTFest25 formed a vibrant tapestry, each work probing the boundaries between body, technology, and environment. Across three interactive installations and six diverse performances, artists explored themes of ancestral & ritual, transformation, identity and the unseen, inviting audiences to experience the festival’s ethos through immersion and participation.

Installation

• CYBER GAOTAI by Elf (Wanrong Zhu): Set in 2066, this VR installation reimagines a 400-year-old Yunnan ritual, which only a ‘chosen’ child could ascend to the GaoTai platform. In a cybernetic future ruled by AI, audiences step into roles as Human, Deity, or Machine, exploring freedom, gaze, and algorithmic destiny in a posthuman world.

  
  

• Roots to the Universe by Janmejay Singh: A VR retelling of the Gond community’s creation myth — the Genesis by Bada Dev (the divine Creator) and contemporary challenges e.g. deforestation, pollution, reflecting on sustainability, displacement, and the resilience of culture through indigenous art and allegory.

  
  

• VIVUS by Yoon-Joo JEE: A living installation that guides the participants through a rite of passage through real-time projection mapping and responsive soundscapes. Visuals are activated by the authentic movements and voices of participants, creating a ritualistic journey from disconnection to vibrant presence.

Image & credit (left to right):   ViVUS by Yoon-Joo JEE | CYBER GAOTAI by Elf (Wanrong Zhu) | Roots to Universe by Janmejay Singh

Performance

• Fidy Twuny by Keith Alexander: An Afro-futurist tale following Fidy’s journey of bioluminescent transformation, guided by ancestral spirits who reveal abundance in the abyss. Set in the ocean’s depths after the ice caps melt in 2050, this performance weaves projection and motion capture technology into its storytelling, immersing audiences in a visionary underwater future.

  
  

• Metanoia by Oliver Walton: A hybrid solo performance using real-time generative AI to continually transform a boy and his grandmother’s story. Metanoia blurs live and virtual embodiment, exploring shifting perspectives and the interplay of control, memory, and identity within fractured realities.
  

• Born in Latent Space by Marlon Barrios Solano: An encounter between a performer and the laptop as a cognitive entity in a lecture-performance format. Blending storytelling, machine learning, voice and algorithmic improvisation, Born in Latent Space dissolves boundaries between memory, code, and self in the latent space.
  

• INTER:FASE by Uku'Pacha: A re-investigation of movement logics within virtual space and the dramaturgy of multiple & liminal realities. A photorealistic avatar in real-time animated by the motion capture suit probes the boundaries between physical and digital embodiment, questioning consciousness through mirroring and reflections.
  

• Resonant Silence by Zhou Zhou: An immersive performance where movement and sound merge through improvisation and live interaction. Moving beyond words, it treats silence as a space of potential and sound as a material presence, exploring how embodied gestures and sonic textures shape and respond to each other in real time.
  

• Terms and Conditions by Pierre Engelhard: A live solo performance that blurs the boundaries between physical and digital identity.

  Through choreography, multi-channel video, and real-time surveillance, the performer and her digital doppelgänger interrogate how data, technology, mediated presence and even the emotional residue of digital life abstractify, fragmentize and construct the sense of self/selves.

Image: Fidy Twuny by Keith Alexander (left) | Metanoia by Oliver Walton (right) | Photographer: IJAD

Connecting Threads

Embodiment and Disembodiment: Every work at OOTFest25 grapples with the shifting relationship between physical presence and digital extension. Whether through VR, motion capture, or AI improvisation, artists explore how the body is reimagined, dispersed, or intensified by technology.

Ritual, Transformation, and Passage: Ritual — both ancient and invented — serves as an anchor and a catalyst for transformation. These works use ritual to navigate transitions between states of being, presence, and perception.

Identity, Surveillance, and Multiplicity: Several works interrogate how identity is constructed, fragmented, and abstracted through systems of surveillance, data capture, and digital mediation. The notion of the self becomes fluid, distributed, and often doubled or multiplied.

Collaboration, Participation, and Sensography: Many works blur the line between observer and creator, inviting audiences to become active participants. The festival’s use of ‘sensography’ — a live-hybrid, ‘phy-gital’ approach — foregrounds the collective, participatory dimension of art-making and highlights the unique experiences offered to both online and offline audiences.

The Unseen, the Emergent, and the Latent: Glitches, silences, and latent spaces are embraced as sites of discovery rather than pauses or errors, echoing the festival’s central theme. These works invite audiences to dwell in uncertainty, possibility, and the generative potential of what lies beneath the surface.

Image (left to right): INTER:FASE by Uku'Pacha | Terms & Conditions by Pierre Engelhard | Resonant Silence by Zhou Zhou | Photographer: IJAD

OOTFest25’s installations and performances do more than simply showcase technological innovation — they provoke us to reconsider the very foundations of embodiment, identity, and artistic agency in a digital world. Recurring debates during the festival include “Where is the body? Where is the technology?”. These interrogations prompt further questions: What happens when the body becomes the space, or when technology is only present in the process, not the outcome? Be it on a physical, somatic, or philosophical level, it reminds us to remain aware of what constitutes our bodies and our presence.

The festival’s live-hybrid online (Open Online Theatre) and offline (physical venue) format engenders reflection on how experience shifts across platforms. The “phy-gital sensography” model allows new forms of connection and perception, bridging past and present, inside and outside, and the latent realms in between the multiverse. Yet, the challenge will be to harness these tools not just for novelty or convenience, but to create spaces for innovative transformation, critical inquiry, and sustainable, inclusive futures.

*** Follow the works of IJAD Dance Company and the Open Online Theatre (OOT): https://ijaddancecompany.com/oot/ https://openonlinetheatre.org/