http://www.crewonline.org

CREW is a company that operates on the borderline between art and science, and between the performing arts and new media. With his collective of artists and scientists, Eric Joris generates live art projects that enrich the theatre with new technological developments. Electronic and digital media are the starting point for a unique form of theatrical thought; they are the driving force behind the spectator’s aesthetic experience and reflection. The focal point is often the present-day mediatisation of the senses.

CREW’s experimental work is a hybrid setting where the spectator can become acquainted with the mediatised state of his own existence. The artistic projects take a variety of forms, from plays, through interactive performances, to installations. They are invariably the result of a sophisticated symbiosis between scientific and artistic exploration. The artist Eric Joris creates his live art projects in close consultation with the engineer Philippe Bekaert (EDM, Expertise Centre for Digital Media, Hasselt University).

CREW finds the real-time stage is the best location for investigating the impact of the new media on everyday culture. A continuous dialogue with recent developments in robotics and computer science stimulates the imagination in terms of both design and production, and words and sound.

CREW’s work is divided between CREW_art and CREW_lab. The latter concentrates on technological and scientific research and reflection, the former on creation, production and distribution. The two activities are closely linked and influence each other. CREW_lab has since 2008 been involved in the European 2020 3D Media research consortium and in that year also received a research grant in the context of the IBBT’s Art&D.

Immersive technology plays an important part in CREW’s recent productions. This technology, designed by and for CREW, leads to striking new forms of theatre and performance by evoking a new sort of intimacy and combining real and virtual experiences in an unusual way. The spectator (here called ‘the immersant’) is fitted with an HMD (Head-Mounted Display) that consists of video-goggles, a miniature camera and a tracking system, among other things. They also get a surround-sound headset. In immersive productions, the visitor, guided by an actor, is led from the here and now to somewhere that is neither here nor now, to the here but not now and the now but not here. CREW has been doing intensive research into the creative potential of this technology in such productions as CRASH (2004-5), U-razende stilstand (2006), EUX (2008) and Line-Up (2009). It was also used in O_REX 1.0 (2007) and O_REX 1.3 (2008) as part of a traditional theatre set-up. In the interactive W (Double U) installation (2008) the group shares an experimental set-up of the medium with the audience.