“A multidimensional, seductively cinematic
experience.”
LAist for Cloud Eye Control’s Under Polaris
HALF LIFE
Cloud Eye Control
HALF LIFE
Half Life is a multidisciplinary performance piece inspired by blog postings of Japanese housewives who were
directly affected by the 2011 Fukushima Daiichi nuclear disaster; an elegy for an unsafe and nervous world. Two
women literally and figuratively live on opposite sides of the world when an unknown cataclysmic force disrupts
both of their lives, compelling them to each embark on their own journeys to locate its source. Building off of their
unique style of hybrid performance, Cloud Eye Control will layer performers with projections in space, and will
create imaginative and odd encounters between the virtual and the physical.
Cloud Eye Control is a Los Angeles-based multi-disciplinary performance collective comprised of Miwa Matreyek,
Anna Oxygen and Chi-wang Yang. Integrating animation, experimental theatre, pop music, and puppetry; their
work fuses screen and stage to create inventive hybrids of animation and performance. Their work has been
presented both nationally and internationally.
Half Life is currently in development with support from the New England Foundation for the Arts, National
Theater Project, and The MAP Fund, a program of Creative Capital, primarily supported by the Doris Duke
Charitable Foundation. Additional funds come from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation.
“Cloud Eye Control tugs at the boundaries of what’s
possible with film and video.”
SAN FRANCISCO INTERNATIONAL
FILM FESTIVAL
Half Life is scheduled to premiere at REDCAT in Fall 2014 in Los Angeles.
Touring subsidies are currently available for 2014-2017 bookings through the National Theater Project, a program
of the New England Foundation for the Arts. Please contact us for more information.
PROJECTED TOURING AVAILABILITY: Fall 2014-Fall 2017
PRODUCTION NEEDS: Half Life may be performed in large black boxes, on
proscenium stages, or in warehouse and gallery spaces. An unobstructed playing
space of approximately 30’ x 30’ is required, as well as a full lighting grid and sound
system. Performance must take place indoors, and must be viewed from the front.
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BOOKING: !Miranda Wright, Los Angeles Performance Practice
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[email protected]
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435.668.2799
Cloud Eye Control is a collaborative performance group based in Los Angeles, creating original works that uniquely
combine interactive media with live performance. Cloud Eye Control was founded in 2004 by theater director
Chi-wang Yang, experimental animator Miwa Matreyek, and performer and composer Anna Oxygen. The company
has created three original works that have been presented both nationally and internationally: Subterranean Heart,
Final Space, and Under Polaris.
Whether through a re-imagining of Charles Lindbergh’s trans-Atlantic flight, the discovery of powerful
underground crystals, or one woman’s interstellar search for a new home, a common theme in their stories is that
of human adaptation in a technological world. To realize these stories, pre-rendered animation and live camera
imagery is projected onto various surfaces on the stage, functioning as both scenery and virtual actor. Both high
and low tech methods are used to allow the live actor to interact with the media, ranging from custom-built
interactive video software to the physical manipulation of video puppets.
Recently, Cloud Eye Control has performed or presented at the New Genre Arts Festival, Headlands Center for
the Arts, LACMA, the Center Stage Theater in Santa Barbara, and the Fusebox Festival.
ANNA (OXYGEN) HUFF
Anna is a multi-media artist, composer and performer. She has extensively toured Europe and the United States, performing
dance pop recitals and interactive performance pieces. She has released several albums of electronic and acoustic music,
most recently "This is an Exercise" on indie label Kill Rock Stars. Her performance and video work has been presented at
PS1 MOMA Contemporary, The Seattle Art Museum, LACMA (LA), NYU, The Armory Center for the Arts (Pasadena), The
Portland Institute for Contemporary Art, and the Rohsska Museet in Gothenburg, Sweden among others. She is a member
of Media performance group Cloud Eye Control.
After an upbringing of classical voice training, and a brief stint studying opera at Cornish College of the Arts, she became a
self taught electronics musician, exploring old drum machines, sound modules and loop pedals, and weaving them into her live
performances in basements and punk venues. She went on to get her MFA in Music at the California Institute of the Arts
where she specialized in Experimental Sound Practices and Integrated Media, and began composing more traditional and
developed musical scores for film, theater, and ensembles. Her music and performances play with the blurred spaces between
instruction and improvisation, often inviting musicians and audiences to stand in specific configurations, or creating visual maps
for them to follow.
MIWA MATREYEK
Miwa Matreyek is an internationally recognized animator, designer, and multi-media artist based in Los Angeles. She creates
animated short films as well as live works that integrate animation, performance, and video installation. Her work explores
how animation transforms when it is combined with body and space, and vise versa. She is interested in the meeting point of
cinema and theater/performance, the moments of convergence where fantastical illusions are created, and the moments of
divergence where the two struggles against each other.
Her work has been shown internationally at animation/film festivals, theatre festivals, performance festival, as well as art
galleries, science museums, tech conferences, and more, including TEDGlobal, Sundance, Anima Mundi festival (Brazil), Vimeo
festival, TBA Festival, Platform Animation Festival, Radar LA, ISEA, the Exploratorium, Innotown (Norway), Forum des Images
(France), City of Women (Slovenia), Chilemonos (Chile), S8 Film Festival (Spain), etc.
When not working on her own shows, she often works as a video designer for outside theater companies (Rude Mechs, 605
Collective, Wolf Bowart) and freelances as a commercial designer/animator.
CHI-WANG YANG
Chi-wang Yang is a Los Angeles-based director of theater and performance. Whether in the form of plays, operas, concerts, or
installation, his work is intensely physical, experimental, and collaborative. He is committed to expanding notions of identity
and theatrical form and to exploring the unstable intersections of body, narrative and technology. Recent projects include
Under Polaris with Cloud Eye Control, and The Closest Farthest Away/La Entrañable Lejanía, a groundbreaking international
collaboration between American and Cuban artists.
Yang received his MFA in Theater Directing and Integrated Media at the California Institute of the Arts, where he currently
teaches, and his BA from Brown University. Other training includes the SITI Company (NYC and Skidmore). He is the
recipient of the Princess Grace George C. Wolfe Theater Award for Directing, and in 2011 was an artist in residency at the
Headlands Center for the Arts and the Baryshnikov Arts Center. More information on his work can be found at http://
mysteriously.org.
HALF LIFE: CONCEPT ART
more Cloud Eye Control:
UNDER POLARIS
Weaving seamlessly between performance, animation and theatre, Under Polaris is a multi-media quest through
expansive arctic landscapes, mythical creatures and the ethereal Aurora Borealis. In a not so far off future, a
woman embarks on a journey to preserve the finer elements of humanity by attempting to bury them in the ice
of the north pole. Along the way she takes on animal characteristics to survive the environment and witnesses the
mysterious landscape shifting around her.
Exploring the nuances of acting on and being acted upon by a natural environment, the piece illuminates the
mythological possibilities of unknown landscapes while addressing the tension between our primal nostalgia and a
more modern and often incompatible human optimism. Live music, multi-channel video projection, inventive
staging and beautiful animation brings the audience into a world of floating horizons, mysterious animals, and ice
caves.
For video and more information, visit Under Polaris.
RUN TIME: 65 minutes
PRODUCTION TEAM: 2 performers, 3 musicians, 1 director, 2 technicians
PRESENTATIONS:
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Santiago a Mil Festival, Santiago, Chile / January 2013
New Genres Festival, Tulsa, OK / 2011
Fusebox Festival, Austin, TX / 2010
Exit Festival, Paris / 2010
REDCAT, Los Angeles / 2009
LOS ANGELES
PERFORMANCE PRACTICE
Los Angeles Performance Practice (LAPP) is a producing organization and artists’ network dedicated to supporting
Los Angeles’ unique contemporary performance community. Founded by Miranda Wright in 2010, it is comprised
of independent artists who create groundbreaking theatrical experiences through innovative approaches to
collaboration, technology, and social engagement. By contributing to a shared knowledge, resources, and
conversational critique; artists within this network will transform the cultural landscape of Los Angeles and beyond.
www.LosAngelesPerformancePractice.org/
2014-2016 TOURING
ABACUS / Lars Jan + Early Morning Opera
ABACUS is a baroque presentation delivered by invented icon Paul Abacus about the future of
national borders, the workings of contemporary persuasion, and our evolving relationship to the
screens in our public and private spaces, not to mention our pockets. In style, the presentation
assumes a TED-talk feel fused with the grand gestures of megachurch media design, all while
utilizing emerging technologies and stunning visual effects.
CLOUDED SULPHUR / Janie Geiser + Erik Ehn
Created in response to the tragic, unsolved murder of a 15 year old Los Angeles girl, Clouded
Sulphur navigates a complex terrain of family, loss, revenge, and unexpected hope through a
multidisciplinary performance work that merges puppetry, projection, text, and music. Set at the
edge of Los Angeles, where the untamed landscape meets the city, the performance centers on
absence and the range of feelings that flow through brokenness (revenge, disbelief, unexpected
floods of compassion and hope).
THIS WORLD MADE ITSELF / Miwa Matreyek
Miwa Matreyek, a multimedia performance artist from Los Angeles, creates spellbinding, visually
rich fusions of inventive animation and live performance that will leave you rapt. This World Made
Itself is her latest solo work merging cinematic vistas with theater and intricate shadow play. The
fantastical kaleidoscopic experience is sophisticated yet full of child-like wonder.
BOOKING: !Miranda Wright, Los Angeles Performance Practice
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[email protected]
435.668.2799