Program Notes
Conception
The conception of Consciousness Connected originated from an encounter with the food I was preparing when I noticed the beautiful patterns that have always been there, unhidden to our eyes, but easily ignored by our consciousness. Many of these patterns are similar to those found in the human and animal bodies as well as in the universe. Although I had always been aware of the Fibonacci sequence, it did not occur to me that all the vegetables and fruits that I consume follow a few particular mathematical and geometrical rules. I wondered what laws govern them? Do plants that give off vegetables and fruits have consciousness? Are they merely foods made of atoms or are they legitimate living beings as alive as you and me in their own right? Upon some in-depth research, I learnt that not only that all these plants grow according to a matrix of geometric laws, but that they are very rich life forms that interact with the environment incessantly, as individuals and as groups. They also go through the process of aging and dying.
After I have consumed these plants, their energies are passed onto me in the form of nutrients via their atoms. My next question is "what happens to their consciousness?" A deeper probe into near-death experiences and out of body experiences by academics, particularly the School of Medicine at The University of Virginia, leads me to the possibility of consciousness outside of the body and even after life. Some NDEers described their experiences as devoid of all senses as well as space and time, despite their capability to experience everything at the same time. Most of them experience simultaneous moments of life reviews, individually or collectively beyond species. However, are there any scientific foundations for such a controversial subject? Venturing into quantum physics, the shocking phenomena of how quantum materials defy all usual laws of physics seem to provide some insight into consciousness. Einstein famously called the phenomenon of quantum entanglement “spooky interaction at a distance” because once two particles are entangled, the measurement of one particle could instantaneously affect another particle, despite astronomical distance between them. Nobel Prize laureate Sir Roger Penrose, in his Penrose-Hameroff theory of Orchestrated Objective Reduction, claims that moments of conscious awareness are orchestrated by the microtubules in our brains, in which quantum-mechanical phenomena, such as entanglement and superposition, take place. This may explain various aspects of consciousness in different states, particularly out-of-body experiences, in a scientific manner. How would our conscious experiences differ outside of or even without bodily forms? Would it totally change our perception on other earthlings and reshape our worldview?
Further research into the areas of cosmology and quantum physics brought me the understanding that everything originated from the cosmic materials of the Big Bang. In that sense, everything is not only connected right from the beginning of the universe, but that we each have our individual forms of expression of life.
Form
Throughout this searching process, I have profoundly felt the aesthetics in science, in language, in the life forms, in the vibration and in the universe itself. The lives that I have come into contact with in the past year and a half were organic and sensual - each filled with its own aroma, texture, color and form. Watching their growth from an earlier stage of life to the stage which we call "drooping" and "dying" gives me a new definition of life; maybe there is no drooping or dying at all in the sense that they have their natural beauty in every single stage, even when totally dried up. They call for a medium to express their corporeality outside the usual realm of stage. Their innate bioperformativity is so strong that they do not need pretence or dressing up, and deserve their very own rights to be non-human actants. They need to be introduced via an inter-disciplinary approach that conglomerates science, beautiful poetry, philosophy and music so that sensual and direct interaction with the human audience is made possible. Naturally, an experiential journey for a single individual who can exchange intimate messages with these beautiful non-human actants without distraction from other people in an installation setting guided by sound and text would be the best form to allow all these to happen, and hence - a postdramatic ecotheater work.
Music
This inter-media and interdisciplinary work intends to amalgamate theater, fine arts, philosophy, literature, science and music. Since vibration spawned "the first generation of stars that we now inhibit; music is with us from the beginning crafting the structures which we now see around us" as remarked by the astrophysicist Mark Whittle, I have chosen the structure of a musical work, namely, the sonata, which has a standard three-movement structure. In this work, the three sections are also called movements, as in the musical form. It is circular in nature, with the two outer movements in the same key. The middle movement is usually in another key, tranquil and calm in nature, despite some turbulence in its emotional trajectory. According to Morton Feldman, the emphasis among the three movements shifted from the first to the second movement in the 19th century. Hence, the most extensive section of this work is placed on the second movement, to be taken place inside the performance venue.
The musical language in the first movement has its foundation upon the concept of “controlled chaos” as executed by the French composer Edgard Varèse and the movie director, Jacques Tati. The music is recorded during the encounters on the piano with the people I have the fortune to come across. We make music together, in an improvised manner akin to how life operates - we meet, converge, diverge, interact, conflicting with each other at times, and yet coming to harmony. Every such experience is only one-in-a-lifetime, non-repeatable and never ending. Therefore, random as it may sound to our ears (which are attuned to very organised sounds), it is the most suitable music for the First Movement of Consciousness Connected. Indeed, every participant who comes into the world of this piece contributes to such sound experience near the end of the journey as well, even though it is in the transient moment only and not being recorded.
The choice of a sonata form in this middle movement is because of the circular nature of the three sections, namely, exposition, development and recapitulation. It naturally forms a Freytag’s pyramid, which is often found in literary and play texts. The recapitulation contains similar materials from the exposition, although often varied and even amalgamated. Such circular structure is a simile of the theme of my project – the recycling atoms, and even consciousness, and hence, life itself, and how they transform and connect with each other. By walking into the work, the spectators are walking into a musical form, which has become the theater content too.
In an attempt to simulate the apex experience of simultaneity of space and time in the near dear experience when the last atoms of Tangerine have left her body, the most intuitive idea in my mind is the contrapuntal devices as in Bach's fugues. Hence, a polyphonic verbal texture followed by a cacophony of cries from different ages and genders is adopted for this heightened part. I found this marriage between text and music an inevitable as well as an organic consequence stemmed out of the need of the story itself.
Out of the dramaturgical question on how to embody or at least parallel the fact that all materials on the planet originate from the same universal source, the music in the second movement (excluding the ending part where the participant concerted with me), the two characters in voice over, as well as all male and female bawls in the development section, are all from one single source - the author.
Quotes of Poetry and Thoughts
Excerpt from Stray Birds, Rabindranath Tagore
“Let my thoughts come to you, when I am gone, like the afterglow of sunset at the margin of starry silence.”
Excerpt from Unending Love by Rabindranath Tagore
I seem to have loved you in numberless forms, numberless times...
In life after life, in age after age, forever.
My spellbound heart has made and remade the necklace of songs,
That you take as a gift, wear round your neck in your many forms,
In life after life, in age after age, forever…
The love of all man's days both past and forever:
Universal joy, universal sorrow, universal life.
The memories of all loves merging with this one love of ours -
And the songs of every poet past and forever.”
“You are not a drop in the ocean. You are the entire ocean in a drop.”
― Rumi
Michelana Lam
Dramaturgy MFA
School of Drama
HKAPA
場刊
概念
《 意繫同源》的概念源自於與我正在準備的食物的邂逅，我注意到那些一直存在，卻很容易被我們忽視的美麗圖案， 雖然他們並非隱蔽的。 其中許多模式與生物以及宇宙中的模式十分相似。 儘管我一直都知道斐波那契數列，但我並沒有想到我吃的所有蔬菜和水果都遵循一些特定的數學和幾何規則。 我想知道他們是受什麼法則管轄的。長出蔬菜和水果的植物有意識嗎？ 它們只是由原子組成的食物，還是它們本身就是像你我一樣有生命、有權利的個體？ 經過一些深入研究，我了解到所有植物不僅都按照幾何定律矩陣生長，而且它們是非常豐富的生命形體，每一個個體及群體都不斷與環境互動， 他們也是充滿意識的， 與我們一樣，也經歷老化和死亡的過程。
當我食用這些植物後，它們的能量透過它們的原子以營養物質的形式傳遞給我。 我的下一個問題是「他們的意識會發生什麼變化」? 學者們，特別是維吉尼亞大學醫學院，對瀕死體驗和體外體驗進行了更深入的探討，讓我發現了在體外甚至死後存在意識的可能性。 然而，這樣一個有爭議的話題有科學根據嗎？ 從量子物理學角度看，量子物質完全違背所有牛頓物理定律的驚人現像似乎為意識 一題提供了一些見解。 愛因斯坦將量子糾纏現象稱為“幽靈般的遠距離相互作用”，因為一旦兩個粒子糾纏在一起， 對一個粒子進行測量會立即影響另一個粒子，儘管它們之間的距離有天文數字之遙。 諾貝爾獎得主羅傑·彭羅斯爵士在他的 Penrose-Hameroff theory of Orchestrated Objective Reduction中聲稱，意識可能是由我們大腦中的微管產生的，其中發生了量子力學現象，例如糾纏和疊加。 這可以用科學的方式解釋不同狀態下意識的各個面向。 如果沒有實在形體，我們的意識體驗會有什麼不同？它會完全改變我們對其他人以及生命的看法，並重塑我們的世界觀嗎？
宇宙學使我認識到一切都起源於大爆炸的宇宙物質。 從這個意義上說， 雖然我們每個生命都有各自的呈現和表達形式， 但是， 一切都從宇宙誕生之初就相互聯繫。
作品形式
在這個探索過程中，我深刻地感受到了科學的美、語言的美、生命的美、振動的美、宇宙本身的美。 在過去的一年半裡，我充分感受到每一棵菜、每一件水果都是有機的、感性的 — 他們都充滿了自己的香氣、質地、色彩和形態。 看著他們從生命的早期階段成長到我們所謂的「枯萎」和「死亡」階段，讓我對生命有了新的定義；即使已經完全乾涸，也許根本沒有枯萎或死亡，因為它們在每個階段都有其自然之美。這些生命體與生俱來的生物表現力是如此之強，以至於他們不需要假裝或打扮，並且應該擁有自己作為非人類演者的權利。他們需要一種傳統舞台領域之外的跨媒體表達，並且透過跨學科的方法，將科學、詩歌、哲學和音樂結合在一起，以便與人類觀眾進行感官和直接的互動。在聲音和文字引導的裝置中，可以與這些美麗的生命體交換親密訊息而不受他人騷擾的體驗之旅是容許這些要項發生的最佳形式，因此 - 我選擇了一個後戲劇生態劇場的形色作為此作品的呈現模式。
音樂
這部跨媒體、跨學科的作品以水果和蔬菜為主要演員，作品分為三個主要部分，我稱之為樂章，就像音樂的奏鳴曲一樣，具有環迴的特質。第一和第三樂章是同一調性，中間的樂章通常是另一個調性，本質上平靜，儘管其情感軌跡有些動盪。 根據莫頓費爾德曼 (Morton Feldman) 的說法，三個樂章之間的重點在19世紀從第一樂章轉向了第二樂章。 因此，在這作品中，第一第三樂章在網上進行，而實體表演部分則在第二樂章。
第一樂章中使用的音樂語言的基礎是法國作曲家埃德加·瓦雷茲和電影導演雅克·塔蒂所使用的「受控混亂」的概念。這樂章的音樂是我與我有幸遇到的人的隨機碰撞所構成的。 我們一起創作音樂，就像生活一樣即興 ── 我們相遇、匯聚、分歧、互動、有時彼此衝突，但最終又趨於和諧。 每一次這樣的經驗都是不可重複、並無止境、一期一會。 因此，儘管我們的耳朵聽起來可能是隨機的，這卻是最合切這個樂章的音樂。事實上，每一位進入這作品世界的參與者都會在旅程即將結束時，參與即興創作，儘管這些音樂只是在短暫的時刻中發生，並且沒有被記錄下來。
中間樂章採用了奏鳴曲式 — 由呈示、發展和再現三個部分組成。 它自然地形成了經常出現在文學及戲劇文本中的弗雷塔格金字塔。 它本質上也是循環的，因為再現部往往將呈示的材料重新展示，並加以變奏甚至將各主題融合。 這種循環性的結構亦是這作品主題的類比 — 循環的原子，甚至意識和生命本身，以及它們如何相互轉化和連結。 觀眾走進作品，也就走進了一個音樂曲式，而這音樂曲式也是本戲劇的內容。
詩歌與引言
摘自羅賓德拉納特‧泰戈爾《飛鳥》
當我離開時，讓我的心思靠近你，就像晚星寂靜交接之際。
摘自羅賓德拉納特泰戈爾的《無盡的愛》
無論你用什麼姿態出現，
無論幾多次，
幾多世代，
我都愛你，直到永遠。
我沉醉的心不斷為你創造歌曲的項鍊。
你收到這份禮物，
以多種形態掛在脖子上，
作為生命的項鏈，
生生世世，一直流傳落去，
直到永遠。」
「你不是滄海一粟。 你是整個海洋的一滴水。”
——魯米
林美美
戲劇構作
戲劇藝術碩士
香港演藝學院
製作團隊
Production Team
戲劇構作/策展/藝術創作/作曲/劇本/聲演 Dramaturg, Curator, Artist, Composer, Playwright and Voice Over – 林美美 Michelana Lam
舞台經理及互動媒體設計 Stage Manager and Interactive Media Designer – 鄧一言 Ian Tang
製作及助理舞台經理 Production and Assistant Stage Manager – 林少銘 Lam Siu Ming
現場演奏 Live Performers - 林美美及每位觀眾 Michelana Lam and Every Participant
第一樂章即興嘉賓 Guest Improvisers in the First Movement -
陳昊庭 Angie Chan
劉卓偉 David Lau
黃摯毅 Genper Wong
袁思鋭 Sze Yui Yuen
燈光設計 Lighting Designer – 陳文雅 Anna Chan
燈光設置團隊 Lighting Team:
黃逸添 Wong Yat Tim
劉巧怡 Lau Hau Yi Sharon
陳韻怡 Chan Wan Yi
彭博寧 Pang Pok Ning Truman
莫智揚 Mok Chi Yeung
劉欣汶 Lau Yan Man
黃尚康 Wong Sheung Hong
音響設計 Sound Designer – 譚柏烜 Tam Pak Huen
空間設計 Spatial Designer -- 劉子菁 Brandy Lau Tse Ching
技術支援 Technical Support -
林少銘 Sherman Lam
郭謙霞 Sharon Kwok
陳惠英 Sandy Chan
攝影 Photographer – 伍雋祺 Murphy Ng
攝錄 Videographer – 周青諱 Chow Ching Wai
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Photo credits
All photographs within the work are taken first handed; internet royalty-free images are from Pixabay.com and pxhere.com.
Music credits
All music pieces are composed by Michelana Lam; royalty-free ambience sound effects are from mixkit.co, Pixabay.com and archive.org