Project Description:
After more than a year of pandemic life, how can we get back to normal? Is it possible? Should we even try?
Upon Re-entry uses the tragic events of the Columbia shuttle, which failed its re-entry into the Earth's atmosphere, as a parable for our current moment. When trying to return home, the crew of a space shuttle must approach their re-entry at an exact angle and speed. To rush the return is fatal.
Meanwhile, ground control slowly realizes the tragedy unfolding but is unable to help through their screens and devices. Their com checks become a prayer sent out into the universe.
An ensemble of artists creates an immersive world of text, music, and movement that blur the lines between the real-life events of the 2003 NASA catastrophe and reflections from a year sheltering in.
What have we lost? What have we learned? Are we ready to re-enter our old orbits?
This site-sensitive installation has two possible iterations. Visitors can enter the piece from the perspective of ground control or the piece can be visited from the perspectives of astronauts. The two worlds of the piece are in two different locations connected by live streaming screens.
Bios:
Die-Cast is a company for the 21st century and does not fit easily into any box. Our work is genre-busting, tech-savvy, and site-sensitive. We’ve taken over derelict ballrooms to explore Lovecraft’s dangerous nationalistic tendencies, placed our immersive adaptation of La Ronde in a historical mansion to challenge the hetero-normative all while exciting audiences and garnering accolades along the way. We have been nominated for the prestigious Harvey Award for Best Adaptation of a Comic Book, alongside Hollywood Blockbusters like Marvel Studio’s Avengers: Endgame. We have been featured at Art Week Miami 2020. Our public works installation Temporary Occupancy combined pre-recorded and live-streaming video projections and won the Juried Prize of $20,000. We blur the lines between mediums, like our video installation for the I-Park Foundation Site Sensitive Biennial. Before the pandemic, we were experimenting with online platforms, using chatbots, Titoks, and choose-your-own-adventure digital words and now with the rest of the world catching on to the possibilities of alternative story-telling, we are poised to expand our creative and commercial reach.
A Little Extra
What do you remember as your earliest creative act?
I grew up in the Pocono Mountains of Pa, which while lovely, was very wooded and remote. I made this summer-long game for my little sister, cousins, and a few kids who lived within walking distance. There was a complex story with maps and hidden props. I played all of the story characters and the other kids ran around the woods, wearing towels as capes and discovering my very generous mom's old jewelry. So maybe that was my first immersive piece? Maybe my little sister was my first audience. She was definitely the best audience.