NEW:
Shy nag (a code opera): Act II published as an e-Chapbook by Cordite Poetry Review (February 2016)
Shy nag #2 (Bergen, Norway, 7 August 2015)
Shy nag performance 5 February 2015 ( video screen capture ]
In 2012 Sonny Rae Tempest & Chris Funkhouser were part of a group “teaching” an UnderAcademy College course titled TOO MANY COOKS.
At this time, Tempest & Funkhouser first collaborated on an experimental verbal artwork, “Exit Ducky”, published (with commentary) in Cordite. Text is derived by processing the code of a .jpg with Google Translate & Microsoft Word.
A second collaboration, using similar and expanded methods, has become a “code opera” named Shy nag, in which a libretto, a musical score, and “scenery” are produced with the hexadecimal code of the same .jpg image:
The code we based everything on could be interpreted in many ways. To make the libretto, we opened an image file as a Chinese character-encoded text file, then translated the resultant text into English, which was subsequently processed and filtered through Word spell-check. Since the code is lengthy, the output was large. A prismatic text, comprised of choices made among thousands of possible options, results.
During its decomposition and transcreation, characters, settings, and instructions emerged, which is how it became a libretto.
A range of sounds were crafted, and refined into something quirky and appropriate for the production/performance [see https://soundcloud.com/ctfunk/shy-nag-mix-30-ins for an example].
Morphing color fields, projected behind actors and perhaps onto a disco ball swirling throughout the room, with the code again at its roots, completes the production.
Chris Funkhouser's 3/12/15 lecture at Brown discusses the production and process with more detail.
Students in the NJIT/Rutgers-Newark Theatre Department staged Shy nag on February 5, 2015, in Bradley Hall, Rutgers-Newark.
Shy nag promotional video
Shy nag performance documentation
Play bill 05 February 2015 (mouse-over)
Published reviews:
The Vector, 10 February 2015 | The Observer, 10 February 2015
Shy nag in Bergen, Norway (Electronic Literature Festival), August 2015
under Louis Wells, Director, Shy nag was staged a second time, at the United Sardine Factory in Bergen, Norway. The cast: Maria Aladren, Sandy Baldwin, Kathi Inman Berens, Natalia Fedorova, Aleatory Funkhouser, Chris Funkhouser, Fluorish Klink, Jeneen Naji, Álvaro Seiça, Louis Wells.
video documentation (by Jaad Asante)
Pre-conference article with reference to Shy nag by Judy Malloy
ELO 2015 festival proceedings with section on Shy nag (via Dropbox)
