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Michel van der Aa’s From Dust: a virtual reality opera installation
Michel van der Aa's latest creation is premiered at De Doelen in Rotterdam on 3 December. From Dust is a virtual reality opera installation in which the audience itself takes part in the action and helps to shape the work. The innovative composer-director-conceptual artist is once again breaking new ground in the world of music theatre.
With his latest pioneering music-theatre work, Michel van der Aa is once again expanding the boundaries of what is possible. In many of his earlier works, he has already combined live music with sophisticated technology and video projection with staged performance – combining roles as composer, director and video artist - from the monodrama One in 2003 and the 3D film opera Sunken Garden in 2013 to the chamber music theatre piece The Book of Water in 2022. All of these works question the fracturing of human existence and the limits of our perception of the world. This is also the case in From Dust, a 24-minute creation for six vocalists and soundtrack, which will be presented for the first time as part of Rotterdam's Immersive Tech Week at De Doelen arts centre.
In this new work the differences between reality and identity, audience and artwork become blurred. Participants enter a 360-degree installation space that reacts to movement and touch impulses and is co-designed in real time with the help of AI control - an interaction in which worlds are created, a main character and gradually detaching alter egos are explored and new stories are told.
Michel van der Aa himself describes his new work as follows: “From Dust transcends the boundaries of traditional opera and takes you to the forefront of immersive storytelling and personalized art. Explore the boundaries of reality and identity in an innovative virtual reality opera installation customized by you and for you using AI.”
“You walk into a dark space. Soon you see a cloud of tiny particles before you, swarming in the air like a flock of starlings. When you dip your hand into the cloud, the particles slowly transform into the shape of a woman. A second version of her appears and splits away from the original. The eyes of these two figures meets yours and they begin to sing. Are you a spectator or a participant in this world?”
Through interaction with the installation, through movement and touch, the course of events is influenced, the participants become the counterpart of the protagonist and her five alter egos, performed by the six members of the Leipzig vocal ensemble Sjaella. The multi-sensory experience is tailored to each individual with the help of generative AI. “You are not passively watching, but actively shaping your own story, ... creating new worlds,” says Michel van der Aa.
> Watch the trailer for From Dust on YouTube
Michel van der Aa: From Dust (2024) 24'
3-15 December 2024
De Doelen, Rotterdam (Immersive Tech Week)
> full production details
> De Doelen website
> Further information on Work: From Dust
Photo: Film still from the R&D-phase of From Dust (© Michel van der Aa)
