Rooftop theatrical production of "Immersive Media for Hysterical Relaxation"

Telematic Tubs against terror consisted of baths such as hot tubs, jacuzzis, etc., remotely connected together over the internet. An inverse Brechtian Thatre (of the absurd) connects the waters of the deconsciousness with two uses of the bath:

Relaxation: a private, intimate space for calm recollection;
Bioterror hysteria: emergency cleansing, such as during an anthrax scare when hundreds of people are stripped and herded, by firefighters, through decontamination baths after being hosed down.

The word "hysterical" also relates to the womb, and thus the bath also symbolizes pre-birth water, and the vulnerability of the unborn child in the post-cyborg age of terror.

Merriam-Webster dictionary defines hysteria as

Main Entry:     hys.te.ria
Pronunciation:  his-'ter-E-&, -'tir-
Function:       noun
Etymology:      New Latin, from English hysteric, adjective, from Latin
hystericus, from Greek hysterikos, from hystera womb; from the Greek notion
that hysteria was ... caused by disturbances of the uterus ...

Brainwaves and network traffic

In these theatrical performances, audience members and performers are connected to EEG electrodes (brainwave monitoring systems, etc.). When brainwaves are played out through the loudspeakers, the sound is very much like the noise of traffic on a busy street (unless, for example, modulated into regenerative music).

The traffic also symbolizes network traffic, like an urban beach, as packets of data flow through the rivers of the mind.

Here are some pictures of the immersive multimedia environment at the rooftop theatre/performance space located directly across the street from the Art Gallery of Ontario.

Thanks to Jack A. Frost for providing the lighting, including the loan of some Selecon fixtures. Thanks also to Selecon for donation of fixtures that made these projects possible.

In the fetal position, the brainwave electrodes suspended over the telematic tub form an umbilical cord. The Telematic Tub is connected to the Internet by way of online EEG monitors, as well as various other devices such as web cameras, displays, and sensors. Remote tubs in geographically different locations are joined together across the Internet, so that bathers in different locations are immersed in the same media (water at identical temperature and wave conditions). The pumps and motors of geographically disparate jacuzzis pump, from the same electrical power grid, in unison the waves and surf that pounds identically upon the bodies in different physical locations.

Linked by various web-based media, the baths connect otherwise intimate bathing expriences into a worldwide washdown of massively communal bathing: