Opening in Istres

Friday, November 6, and Saturday, November 7

• Show at 8:00 p.m.
  Running time: 1 hour 15 minutes
  Ages 12 and up
  Scènes & Cinés – L’Usine
  Istres
  
• Augmented reality installation from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m.
  Cour de l’ancien Musée archéologique,
  Rue du Puits Neuf

Rabbit Hole is a theatrical production for teenagers (and older) that explores our digital addictions through two formats: a play in which three characters from different generations cross paths around an abyssal fountain, until a teenage girl sparks a liberating revolt; and an augmented reality installation that plunges the viewer into an infinite fall, where scrolling and swiping become political acts.

Let’s imagine that, for the time it takes to read these few words, we shield ourselves from all other external distractions. Let’s imagine that the space of theatrical performance has become one of the last bastions where we can still come together, without any interface slipping into the gap. Let’s imagine that the need for screen-free sanctuaries—for “de-digitized” zones—becomes a societal necessity.

Rabbit Hole is set in this space between dreams and reality. It is a theatrical production aimed at a teenage audience—though not exclusively—and consists of two parts: a live, front-of-house performance and a digital experience in the form of an augmented reality installation.

The show Rabbit Hole offers a willing suspension of time and disbelief, a temporary setting aside of screens. In this space-time—a sort of blank zone conducive to boredom—we encounter three characters from three different generations. They live side by side, crossing paths at the edge of a strange fountain with an abyssal depth. All are in the grip of their technological addictions, but the youngest—a teenager—will become the catalyst for a liberating digital revolt, leading to the group’s rebirth.

The Rabbit Hole installation, meanwhile, offers an experience outside the theater near a fountain similar to the one featured in the set design. Through augmented reality, the audience will discover a virtual, endless fall into the fountain, where scrolling and swiping are the only possible actions. These gestures, which have become cognitive reflexes, will be examined in terms of their political and social dimensions, in a world reduced to a shadow of its former self.

In both formats—which function as interconnected portals between the inside and the outside—real, virtual, and dreamlike spaces will unfold before our eyes.