Blue Brute is an audiovisual exploration of Bluebeard’s Castle, an ancient fairy tale of horror and suspense. The story is reduced to a skeleton structure onto which its essence is grafted: space as a narrative device. The exploration of the theme is largely poetic as the audience is invited to travel through a number of allegoric rooms, an abstracted narration of tension in light, space, texture and sound.

Unreal, a video game engine, is used as a 3D cinematographic toolset to bring the performance to life with simulated light and cameras. One could consider it an inversion of silent films, where performers accompany the film with musical instruments, only that here, the film emerges from the performance.

The form of the performance consists of a deconstructed scenography, shattered viewpoints into the mindscape of Bluebeard. The auxiliary screens offer clues and suggestions to enhance the narrative and break the single screen experience. The performer acts as a Dantean guide through a dark descent. His hands are controling levers that manipulate the projected environment in terms of light, camera’s, texture and sound. The result is live cinema in the true sense of the term.

Blue Brute fuses state of the art technology in realtime computer graphics and sound. Photorealism allows the artist to create alternate realities that are congruous with human experience. It engages the audience in imaginaries that pick up from art history and archetypes, while maintaining an abstract narrative.

Booking by Juliette Bibasse