• DO YOU COPY?
    (formerly known as My Name is HAL)
    Do You Copy? is a science fiction puppet show in development that uses bunraku-style puppets, shadow puppets, live video, and interactive projection to explore our very personal experience of self inside a technological world fluctuating between 'virtual' and 'real.'
    Upcoming...
    DONATE
    Donate now! Do You Copy? is a sponsored project of Fractured Atlas , a non-profit arts service organization. Contributions in behalf of My Name is Hal may be made payable to Fractured Atlas and are tax-deductible to the extent permitted by law.
    Video Previews... The story of Do You Copy? takes common computer processes and performs them on puppets! Much like Photoshop scales and distorts, our everyman puppet hero finds himself cut and paste physically and virtually. In a surreal dream world inside his television set our hero, Hal, finds many versions of himself, both virtual video images and real physical copies. These Other-Hals seem transfixed with a giant video screen, which eventually gobbles them up and spits them back out in pieces. These body parts thence come to life as disembodied individuals and paste themselves onto our main hero. Hal is transformed into a kind of all-powerful monster who can, not only manipulate his own body, but also the ever-present video images and screens. The conflict created is surprisingly not between HAL and the video screen, but rather between HAL and himself. When his body parts turn against him, Hal finds himself running from his own shadow and teaming up with his exact replica.

    Past Work...
    DRAMATURGY In our society, we are saturated by media and technology. This experience finds us anxious and confused about its effects on our behavior, our psyches, and our interior lives. Our sense of self becomes more and more defined by our relationship with each of our multiplied and mediatized selves. Through webpages, social networking, email, and digital pictures we publicly and privately define ourselves. Do You Copy? addresses this anxiety. Instead of blaming technology for the destruction of society and personal identity, Copy suggests our own complicity in creating and understanding our 'real' and 'virtual' selves. VIDEO The dramaturgy of Copy is directly supported by its use of video. By projecting live video images of the Hal puppet on specifically placed screens the show creates true interaction and a real relationship between the video and the live puppetry. This creates a confused sense of reality where the video is just as real as the puppets and vice versa. The moving projection screens are also used to create transformational scenery and thereby function as an essential 'character' to the story. PUPPETS The puppet design has found its way from a foam puppet (2005), to a puppet with a smooth, slick skin (2007), back to a foam puppet with an organic sensibility (2008). I have recently decided to rebuild all of the Hal puppets, juxtaposing their design with the smooth, slick design of the projection screens. After our recent script development we have more specific needs for the Hal puppet that make it worth a redesign ie: removeable body parts. The main Hal puppet is a bunraku-style 2 1/2 foot tall foam puppet manipulated by 2-3 people at a time. The Hal copies and multiples are also built with foam, but are manipulated as hand and rod puppets. Do You Copy also includes shadow puppets and a large abstract projection screen with massive arms and a sucking mouth. SOUND
    Raja Azar's video game sound loop compositions guide the viewer through this surreal experience.
    Funding has also been
    made possible by
    the Puffin Foundation.
    direction and puppets by Kate Brehm
    video design: Hal Eagar, Z Briggs, Guy Hilton
    Composer: Raja Azar Other marvelous people who have worked on HAL:
    Tom Aizlewood, Helen Laing, Liat, Timmah, Andy Jones, Francis Aizlewood, Lindsay Abromaitis-Smith, Nina Kyle (builders)
    Andy Jones, Emily Decola, Basil Twist(puppet design) Eric Wright, Ceili Clemens, Kirsten Kammermeyer, Ari Boles, Keri Lewis, Matt Groff, Jon Levin, Jamie Samowitz, Adam Ende, Duskin Drum, Tamara, Jenny Campbell, Tom Knight, Emmy Bean, William, Sharon, Martina Plag (puppeteers) Jana Reidel, Matt (video) Anand Veldra (lighting design) Erin Orr (dramaturgy) Bob Culek, Lauren Keenan (tech crew)

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