Piotr Szyhalski: Theater of Operations - Saturday

Piotr Szyhalski

About Theater of Operations

The term “theater of operations” was defined in field manuals as “the land and sea areas to be invaded or defended” (“Organization and Administration in World War II” by Blanche B. Armfield, M.A.). “Theater of Operations” is a site-specific multimedia/sound installation developed by Minneapolis College of Art and Design Professor Piotr Szyhalski, wherein a historical theater building (The Allen Theatre) is transformed into a reenactment space in which dialogues transcribed from video documents recorded in Iraq are reconstructed by multiple sound sources installed throughout the entire theater: lobby, audience, stage. From ultra-quiet, intimate voices, to aggressive and confrontational sounds, the recordings span the range of human emotions as dialogue from the soldiers reflect a sobering and, at times, discomforting truth. This challenging new installation, experiencing its world premiere at Ingenuity, seeks to explore questions about the connection between art and current/historical events.  

The physical implementation of the project draws on a significant array of heavy equipment and sound sources bearing an artistic resemblance to combat gear: directional speakers, traditional speakers, and small speakers hidden in covert locations are integrated with the theater space to focus sound on pinpoint locations to create a startling result.  Custom-built software will help facilitate a dynamic mode of playback that helps “activate” the full environment with non-patterned playback sequences based on such variables as audience presence, time of day, and “eavesdropping” microphones interspersed to draw new material from ever-changing sound sources. The result of this startling juxtaposition of beauty and despair disrupts the familiar theater experience, producing an unexpected, transformative, and disquieting war-torn sensory environment for the audience to bear witness.

About Piotr Szyhalski

Piotr Szyhalski's interactive designs are world renowned, and have been profiled in Wired, Rolling Stone, and The New York Times.  He has exhibited his work at Walker Art Center in Minneapolis, the New School in New York, School of The Museum of Fine Arts in Boston, Museum of Contemporary Photography in Chicago and The Museum of Modern Art in Rijeka, Croatia. Piotr currently serves as a Professor in the Media Arts Department at the Minneapolis College of Art and Design.