

>When my home was destroyed, I was shocked beyond words. The once-safe haven I had always believed 'home' to be, since childhood, revealed its fragility, susceptible to any change. Standing on the balcony one day, I realized the entire city was an illusionary, fickle organism, in a constant state of floating. 
>— Shu-Kai Lin

FuturePerfect Studio is currently in the conceptual phase of a groundbreaking mixed reality theatrical experience (MR) provisionally titled _The Balcony City Civilization._ This visionary project builds upon the research and development of the past decade, focusing on location-based immersive storytelling and highlighting the convergence of theater, game engines, and interactive technologies.

While museums frequently offer augmented and immersive experiences, there are few examples of scalable mixed reality experiences incorporating live actors, sets, choreography, and the enactment of stories. This innovative project seamlessly blends digital content, live performance, and installation art to introduce novel forms of group interactive experiences.

Equipped with AR headsets, audience members will embark on a guided journey through a labyrinthine, seamlessly blending meticulously crafted pathways, historical artifacts, and live actors within an interactive digital scenography. Developed through a collaboration between FuturePerfect and Taiwanese artist Shu-kai Lin, this fictional work explores the emotional impact of urban displacement and alienation experienced by families worldwide, employing spatial computing and immersive design technologies.

**Synopsis**: Amidst the chaos of urban upheaval and the devastating loss of his home, Mr. Yang-Tai (陽台先生), an office worker, begins to question the monotony of his daily routine and grapples with the haunting inquiry: "Is this all there is to my life?" Seeking both answers and adventure, Yang-Tai escapes to a parallel universe where he undergoes a remarkable transformation into a fearless intergalactic traveler.

Venturing aboard a space capsule crafted of his own imagination, Yang-Tai embarks on a challenging journey—at times a dream voyage to the future, at times a science fiction odyssey, at times a quest to find home, and occasionally a mythical journey into the past.

Exploring the farthest corners of the universe and its enigmatic uncharted territories—from the celestial metropolis of Manjusaka (曼珠沙華) to the weathered industrial landscapes of Hua-Chin City (華慶之都), and the abandoned underwater multiverse of Vidunas (維度娜斯)—Yang-Tai's whirlwind odyssey forces him to confront the fundamental question: what truly defines his existence?

Prepare for a journey that will challenge everything you thought you knew!

_The Balcony City Civilization_ is a collabortaion between FuturePerfect and visual artist Shu-Kai Lin and set to premiere in 2025.

large_Kai House Pitch.jpg

medium_Kai House Pitch.jpg

small_Kai House Pitch.jpg

thumbnail_Kai House Pitch.jpg

Kai House Pitch.jpg

LINE_ALBUM_vr分鏡圖補充_231224_14.jpg

LINE_ALBUM_vr分鏡圖補充_231224_11.jpg

33483601740_a3b4548ff8_h.jpeg

Kai Pitch Deck 2.jpg

20170522林書楷-回到母體-050.jpg

Kai and Rob.jpg

IMG_3076.jpg

陽台城市文明空拍島嶼系列 10 _the Civilization of Balcony City Aerophotography of Island Series.jpg

DSC00648.JPG.jpg

林書楷-陽臺城市作品VR.00_00_11_50.Still002.jpg

木階兒地圖.jpg

Black Hole Mesh 宇宙爆炸參考圖_2.jpg

Kai Proposal Images_Page_39_Image_0001.jpg

航空母艦參考_3.jpg

The Balcony City Civilization

_Deep Time_ is a roguelike 3D platformer with resource management and deckbuilding elements. Ascend the surreal abyss of an alien realm. Your journey is a balancing act between strategic bliss and the brink of oblivion. Don’t die, or it will vanish forever

**Wishlist us on Steam:** [_here_](https://store.steampowered.com/app/2568730/Deep_Time/)

**Merciless Platforming**. 
 Navigate a labyrinth where gravity is an afterthought. Spawn platforms from the abyss, merging agility with strategy. Double jump, dash, and ascend - but one misstep could send you plummeting.

**Cards of Destiny**.
Your deck is your arsenal in this stark landscape. Cards carve new paths, bestow powers, and summon crucial resources. But, their usage drains enlightenment – a vital but finite force that anchors your ascent.

**Resource Roulette**.
To reach the apex, resource management is vital. Allocate your currency for abilities that distort reality, utilize keys to unlock enigmatic powers, and synergize your deck for maximum impact. Each decision is crucial.

**Chaos Unleashed**.
Every ascent in Deep Time is a unique challenge. Speedrun to the summit and vie for a spot on the leaderboards in a world of procedurally generated levels that demand adaptability and shrewd planning. Each run crafts a distinct reality – fail, and watch it vanish as if it never was.

large_Deep Time Rock Formation3.png

medium_Deep Time Rock Formation3.png

small_Deep Time Rock Formation3.png

thumbnail_Deep Time Rock Formation3.png

Deep Time Rock Formation3.png

ss_64f3ce5f414176516e9f82adc744db554b3a11fa.jpeg

ScreenShot00164.png

ScreenShot00160.png

ScreenShot00159.png

Close up of Noise.jpg

NYU Game Test.jpg

Sprawling tower.jpg

New World Sphere 2023-08-29 at 5.51.38 PM.jpg

ss_35f886c68fd06afdb2e3367b76a85f8dfbf53a87.1920x1080.jpg

Apparition Screenshot 2023.11.28 - 11.24.29.93.png

ScreenShot00186.png

ss_04a72051e71daccdf309a8e9ae03aa0058cbd992.1920x1080.jpg

Grey Box Deep Time 12.18.03 PM.jpg

Deep Time

From November 16-18, 2022 NORDWIND, FuturePerfect Studio and Denis Semionov in collaboration with Kampnagel and Hellerau - European Center for the Arts present _Cyber Attack: Digital Art and Activism_, an international online conference bringing together over 30 artists, producers and curators to discuss important issues of our time.  

In the last decade digital technologies have ushered in a proliferation of hybrid artistic practices, media forms, and discourses across communities all over the world. These technologies have not only shifted the ways audiences experience art in public spaces, they have enabled artists to expand and connect directly to their audiences, collaborate virtually, and interact remotely. The current global pandemic and the dangerously expanding warfare between Russia and Ukraine make understanding these shifts even more critical. Opportunities for artistic production are continuously threatened by restrictions on public gatherings, new forms of surveillance and censorship are increasingly deployed by autocratic regimes, forced migration due to conflict and violence has devastated entire artistic communities, and an information war has left us all more fragmented than when the twenty-first century began.

Cyber Attack: Digital Art and Activism investigates how and under what conditions artists are deploying technologies and online spaces to build impactful narratives and actions that respond to accelerating political, economic, and environmental crises, while forging new communities and alliances.

**Participants include:** Lev Manovich, Chico MacMurtrie, Luise Kaunert, Team Rolfes, Oleg Nikolaenko, LaJuné McMillian, Anna Shvets, Tosca Terán, Vladimir Storm, AES+F, Nikita Shokhov, Anna Evtiugina, Theo Triantafyllidis, Georgy Molodtsov, Arseniy Zhilyaev, Joshua Citarella, Ellina Gennadievna, Ira Konyukhova, Oksana Syhareva, Alina Mikhaleva, Olga Dvoretskaya, Allen Feldman, Sutu, Jiabao Li, Choy Ka Fai, Johanna Bruckner, Cécile B. Evans, Egor Kraft.

**More Information:** [_here_](https://cyberattack.nordwind-festival.de/)

**Purchase Tickets:** [_here_](https://www.eventbrite.com/e/cyber-attack-digital-art-and-activism-tickets-432446879257?keep_tld=1)


Cyber Attack is funded by NEUSTART Kultur Fonds darstellende Künste and the Checkpoint Charlie Foundation

production-35cb5fb758bf4c5c2646f70aa6c5da15-turandot.jpeg

large_production-35cb5fb758bf4c5c2646f70aa6c5da15-turandot.jpeg

medium_production-35cb5fb758bf4c5c2646f70aa6c5da15-turandot.jpeg

small_production-35cb5fb758bf4c5c2646f70aa6c5da15-turandot.jpeg

thumbnail_production-35cb5fb758bf4c5c2646f70aa6c5da15-turandot.jpeg

01-2000x2000-q70.jpg

Border+Crossers+audience+still+2+LK.jpg

0000973.jpg

mycelia2.jpg

ckeslkom50ijvf0ra11bsflkj-lmcmillian-black-movement-project.full.jpg

18-1200x1200-q70.jpg

Cyber Attack

[Will Ryman](https://www.willryman.com/) is a visual artist and playwright creating large-scale sculptures and public art installations. His ongoing interest in literature, philosophy, and the Theatre of the Absurd manifests in his playful investigation of the folly of existence and our shared search for meaning and resolve. Material and subject are of equal importance for his work—revealing his intuitive approach to sculpting diverse materials into expressive forms that examine essential aspects of the human experience.

FuturePerfect Studio is deploying the new tools and procedures of online gaming and immersive technologies to explore alternative ways of expanding Ryman's work and process.

The final project will be a series of episodes delivered online to personal computers and VR headsets, transporting audiences into a story-space that negotiates between Ryman's personal history, his childhood memories, and fiction. Situated in an enormous 3D digital model of his childhood home, audiences will move through a spatialized narrative that unfolds across multiple rooms embedded with video, 3D animation, sound, and digital puppeteering. 

large_IMG_5050.jpeg

medium_IMG_5050.jpeg

small_IMG_5050.jpeg

thumbnail_IMG_5050.jpeg

IMG_5050.jpeg

2BE3CE43-4626-4674-A640-42C4963E350A_1_105_c.jpeg

66D065B2-B32A-4CFC-BF80-0F0EA19C45E2_1_105_c.jpeg

IMG_5056.jpeg

IMG_5369 2.jpeg

IMG_6675 2.jpeg

IMG_5348.jpeg

FA08D6B3-8F7E-42FE-B11A-B378EDFFDFC2_1_105_c.jpeg

Studio Visit

Early mockup showing scanned virtual environment of Ryman's studio and sculptures

In 2020, FuturePerfect invited internationally acclaimed artist William Kentridge to collaborate on a new virtual work called "Starve the Alogorithm." After a series of workshops organized by FuturePerfect, the work grew into an experimental visual and spatial narrative inhabited by fragments and traces of Kentridge's ideas, materials and understanding of history.

In this 10 min exploration, participants encounter an architecture of interlocking rooms—the artist's studio, a kinetic theater, a hall of curiosity cabinets, and finally into an enormous amphitheater taken over by a dancing megaphone and fan puppet. Each audience's interactions form a horizon of meaningful connections—an arc of possibilities, but not necessarily a plot or story. 

The work was developed with financial support from Taiwan Creative Content Agency (TAICCA) and Jacob’s Pillow.

A spatial VR narrative with puppets, video, and animation

large_Defeated Hope.png

medium_Defeated Hope.png

small_Defeated Hope.png

thumbnail_Defeated Hope.png

Defeated Hope.png

20211110_TCCF_0828.jpg

sta-1.png

sta-5.jpeg

sta-2.png

sta-taicca.jpg

sta-4.jpeg

Screen Shot 2022-05-09 at 6.44.48 PM.png

Starve the Algorithm

Early video showing experiments with bringing scanned physical models into our virtual environment

*Expanded Rolfes Rebuild* is a prototype for a head-spinning online multiplayer interactive performance by the acclaimed experimental design and performance studio Team Rolfes. The work features Rolfes's vertiginous 3-D fantasy landscapes and real-time choreography. Pushing the boundaries of digital expression through body-driven movement and digital puppeteering, *Expanded Rolfes Rebuild* exemplifies the team's high powered dive into the unrequited yearning that drives the messy, contradictory performance of identity online. 

A prototype for a head-spinning online interactive performance

large_rolfes-rebuild.png

medium_rolfes-rebuild.png

small_rolfes-rebuild.png

thumbnail_rolfes-rebuild.png

rolfes-rebuild.png

HighresScreenshot00057 3600.png

HighresScreenshot00058-3600.png

HighresScreenshot00082-3600.png

HighresScreenshot00083-3600.png

HighresScreenshot00101-3600.png

HighresScreenshot00001.jpg

Expanded Rolfes Rebuild

With Bridge Over Mud, the Oslo-based art collective Verdensteatret transforms the theater into a complex, multi-channel electro-acoustic space and visual instrument, played and manipulated by a team of artists, software developers, and musicians. Part music concert, part installation, and part performance, Bridge Over Mud features a vast delivery system that includes 195 feet of elevated tracks, 11 motorized vehicles, 60 speakers, and 30 micro-controlled motors. Throughout the hour-long work, the company uses these tracks to literally transport video, sculptures, shadows, screens, and sounds to create a dazzling open-ended story space of immense proportion.

Bridge Over Mud evokes the prehistory and beginnings of cinema with strong metaphorical connections to locomotion and trains. Train travel provided the prototypical experience of looking at a framed moving image, as well as the mechanical double of the cinematic apparatus. Both were means of transporting a passenger to totally different places, and both were highly charged vehicles of narrative events, stories, and chance encounters. While Bridge Over Mud is NOT about cinema, nor is it about trains, the work’s featured miniature vehicles do function in the capacity of both camera and projector. They travel amongst an array of lenses to create much of the work’s sumptuous light-refracted images. Verdensteatret has often built its pieces from “raw” materials collected during journeys and encounters with foreign landscapes and cultural “others.” For example, the company created Tsalal (2001-2002) from a trip to Odessa and Istanbul, Concert for Greenland (2003) engaged the harsh and majestic landscapes of Greenland and other north-Atlantic islands, and Louder (2007) was created after a journey to Vietnam and the Mekong-river.

Bridge Over Mud continues the company’s preoccupation with travel with its tropes of discovery, chance, disorientation, and altered states of consciousness.

large_bom.jpeg

medium_bom.jpeg

small_bom.jpeg

thumbnail_bom.jpeg

bom.jpeg

Bog19.JPG.jpg

IMG_6888 kopi.jpg

Bog16.JPG.jpg

Bog11.jpeg

_MG_7831 kopi.jpeg

Bog01.jpeg

Bridge Over Mud

How is music composed underwater? What are the physics of sound in water? What kinds of instruments can sustain melody in these aquatic environments ? These were some of the questions that Between Music asked us to solve for their latest and most ambitious work AquaSonic.

Over the next two years, FuturePerfect designed and implemented a multi-phase plan for solving numerous acoustic, technical and aesthetic problems in order to complete the work. This involved assembling and managing a team of scientists, artists and inventors including the Danish artistic director and stage designer Kirsten Dehlholm, MIT engineer and artist Andy Cavatorta, UK-based electronic engineer and cymbalsmith Matt Nolan, and University of Texas, Austin aquatic acoustic engineer Preston Wilson. We also located artist-in-residencies, generated marketing and communication materials, found additional funding and sponsorship, and created numerous opportunities for presentation.

After securing a world premiere at the Operadagen Festival in Rotterdam in 2016, we organized a world tour to France, Lithuania, Scotland, Russia, Hong Kong, Sweden, and Australia. AquaSonic was one of the 10 winners of the Music Theater Now competition in 2018.

large_aq-main.jpeg

medium_aq-main.jpeg

small_aq-main.jpeg

thumbnail_aq-main.jpeg

aq-main.jpeg

all.jpeg

tank.jpeg

laila.jpeg

nanna.jpeg

robert.jpeg

5kar.jpeg

hydraulophone.jpeg

rotacorda.jpeg

AquaSonic

FuturePerfect worked with director and choreographer Alan Øyen to develop his company’s intercultural masterpiece—Simulacrum / Natsue, a striking visual narrative and dance that weaves together the real and fictional journeys, histories and desires of two dancers from Japan and Argentina.

We traveled to Tokyo and Shikoku Island to conduct primary research that became part of the production; and we devised the project proposal and preliminary dramaturgical structure.

We assembled a pool of artists and engineers to conceptualize scenographic approaches and new projection systems for the final work. After an extensive search and interview process we brought MIT artist and engineer Andy Cavatorta and his associates Marina Litvinskaya and Yvette King into the design and building phase.

A striking visual narrative with electromechanical projections

large_simulacrum-stage.jpeg

medium_simulacrum-stage.jpeg

small_simulacrum-stage.jpeg

thumbnail_simulacrum-stage.jpeg

simulacrum-stage.jpeg

simulacrum-main.jpeg

simularcrum1.jpeg

simulacrum2.jpeg

simulacrum3.jpeg

simulacrum5.jpeg

simlarcum4.jpeg

simlacrum7.jpeg

simulacrum6.jpeg

Simulacrum / Natsue

Brazilian filmmaker Caio Ribeiro brought FuturePerfect in as a creative consultant to devise his latest production *Borges Virtualis*. The work is based on *The Intruder*, a short story by Jorge Luis Borges that tells of two brothers who fall obsessively in love with a young drifter who they eventually murder after failed attempts to share her.

FuturePerfect worked with Ribeiro to transform the story into a platform for interrogating both his own history of trauma and the state sanctioned terrorism perpetrated by the Argentine junta during the Dirty War from 1976 to 1983. We worked with Ribeiro to open up and expand *The Intruder* into a immersive experience that will be part film, speculative fiction, installation and virtual reality.

A transmedia retelling of a Borges short story

large_borges-main-edit.jpeg

medium_borges-main-edit.jpeg

small_borges-main-edit.jpeg

thumbnail_borges-main-edit.jpeg

borges-main-edit.jpeg

borges4.jpeg

borges2.jpeg

borges5.jpeg

borges6.jpeg

borges3.jpeg

borges1.jpeg

Borges Virtualis

BAM’s education department approached us in 2016 to develop a multi-phase strategy for creating new experiences and knowledge around the shifting status of the body in media, performance and design. For this first exploratory phase, the Director n asked us to focus on a new program called Teknopolis, four floors of interactive digital works in the Fishman space that explored new horizons of virtual reality.

Throughout this process we critically read through texts and material provided by BAM including curatorial and mission statements, and video and teaching materials. We met with staff from the marketing, programming, and operations teams to hear debates and gather perspectives about their understanding of technology and the arts at BAM. From this research we generated arguments and positions resulting in an interactive map that visualized opportunities for new digital programming and pedagogy.

Wayne Ashley was the original architect of BAM’s new media initiatives in 1999 and bringing our team into this project gave staff a deeper insight into the various ways that technology had figured into past BAM artistic programming and infrastructure.

Creative strategy for an experiential and interactive exhibition

large_xyzt-bam.jpeg

medium_xyzt-bam.jpeg

small_xyzt-bam.jpeg

thumbnail_xyzt-bam.jpeg

xyzt-bam.jpeg

teknopolis2.jpeg

teknopolis1.jpeg

24TEKNOPOLIS3-jumbo.jpeg

teknopolis3.jpeg

24TEKNOPOLIS1-videoSixteenByNineJumbo1600.jpeg

DSC7747.jpeg

Teknopolis

French director Jean Lambert-wild and Théâtre de l’Union invited FuturePerfect to develop the technical processes and systems for a new adaptation of Shakespeares's *Richard III* titled _Richard III, Loyalty Binds Me_. This involved centralizing software, face and body tracking, computer vision, and live-animation as an important strategy for conveying narrative, creating emotional impact, and constructing the mise-en-scene. 

We assembled a team conversant in real time processing and animation pipelines, and initiated and managed a two-week residency in partnership with Fusebox Festival and the University of Texas.

Finally, we represented the show for touring throughout the US and Canada.



Shakespeare driven by live animation and computer vision

large_richard-iii-camera.jpeg

medium_richard-iii-camera.jpeg

small_richard-iii-camera.jpeg

thumbnail_richard-iii-camera.jpeg

richard-iii-camera.jpeg

richardIII_201410tjv_131.jpg

richard_201511tjv_116.jpeg

jean-detail.jpeg

stage.jpg

rotating.jpeg

jean-performer.jpg

Richard III

From 2011 to 2019, FuturePerfect worked with with Performing Arts Hub Norway to develop Norway Now, a long-term strategy for positioning Norwegian Performing Arts in North America and expanding opportunties for Norwegian artists to perform and develop work in the US and Canada. These efforts were incredibly fruitful—bringing North American presenters to Norway to see work and meet artists, as well as touring Norwegian companies throughout North America.

Over the past 7 years we have developed successful pitch sessions, curated numerous panels organized during the Association of Performing Arts Professionals meetings in January, workshops featuring talks from top expertise in the performing arts field, venue tours to the most provocative spaces of cultural production and presentation in NYC, and a specially curated luncheon designed to launch a brand new program for young audiences.

The number of artists coming to the US has increased exponentially. Some of these have included Jo Strømgren, Verdensteatret, Findlay/Sandsmark, NIE Company, Ingri Fiksdal, Heine Avdal, Wakka Wakka, Alan Øyen / winter guests, Ingun Bjørnsgaard, Verk Produksjoner, Grusomhetens Teater, the Krumple, Panta Rei Danseteater, Mia Habib, Plexus Polaire and many others. Participating venues have included BAM, EMPAC, The Clarice Smith Performing Arts Center at the University of Maryland, Watermill Center, New York Theater Workshop, Abrons Art Center, Movement Research, New York Live Arts, Philadelphia FringeArts, Chicago Museum of Contemporary Art, Cincinnati Contemporary Art Center, La Mama, the Kennedy Center, PICA, Fusebox Festival, The Wexner Center, Seattle’s On the Boards, The Schimmel Center and others.

Expanding audiences for Norwegian arts and culture

large_kazak.jpeg

medium_kazak.jpeg

small_kazak.jpeg

thumbnail_kazak.jpeg

kazak.jpeg

Norway Now

FuturePerfect created the blueprint for initiating a new art and technology platform at Austin's Fusebox Festival that would augment and enhance its city-wide annual event and build new audiences.

The blueprint included a new mission statement, goals, objectives and timeline suggesting ways to engage both the local Austin community and select art and technology hubs in the US and Europe. FuturePerfect emphasized the importance of engaging its Spanish-speaking neighbors in Mexico and South America and to foreground potential cultural links around technology initiatives emerging in those countries as well.

As part of this process, we participated in several brainstorming sessions including a public presentation that examined different ways Fusebox might foster a more meaningful interaction between the art world and the technology world. We explored what shape this could take on for Fusebox. What its function could be (i.e., a lab for artists and technology professionals? Or a showcase? etc.) If so, what sorts of parameters might be interesting? Who were potential players? Were there other models (nationally and internationally they could be looking at)?

large_MotionBank_main.jpg

medium_MotionBank_main.jpg

small_MotionBank_main.jpg

thumbnail_MotionBank_main.jpg

MotionBank_main.jpg

Art and Tech at Fusebox

For nearly 25 years, the Norwegian art collective Verdensteatret has created original works at the intersection of theater, visual art, music and sound. Their newest piece, *And All the Question Marks Started to Sing*, is a bewilderingly complex art machine played by performers, musicians, and robots. In this high-powered performance, company members manipulate an intricate array of kinetic sculptures assembled from the refuse of everyday life—bicycle wheels, scraps of metal, lenses, celluloid film strips, obsolete amplifier tubes and other electromechanical contraptions—to create a constantly transforming landscape of deeply poetic images and sound. Verdensteatret riffs on the animation filmmakers the Quay Brothers and Ladislav Starevich, the automata and mechanical toys of the 19th century, modern kinetic and conceptual sculpture, the early electronic music (1920 – 1960), among other influences, to create their own unique hybrid of performance, installation and concert.