Ripples
Vault Fringe Future Festival, Wycombe Arts Centre 2021
An audiovisual artwork capturing the fragmented realities we live.
If we found that our brains are making up a story about reality, how do we understand the reality we believe?
Ripples is a sold-out performance that tells the story of a blind and deaf man who "witnesses" the drowning of two young boys. Set near the shore of a beautiful lake, they experience the same event, but the truth of their reality diverges.
Combining binaural sound, film, and live performance, Ripples creates an immersive experience that blurs the line between perception and reality.
Inspired by Xi Chen's real-life experience in Tibet when she was 5 years old, the performance explores the nature of truth and how our individual views of reality shape our own perspectives of it.
Creative Team
Concept and direction: Xi Chen
Performer: Gaurav Singh Nijjer
Performer in the video: Julian Zhang, Styles Li
Sound designer: Trevor White
Composer: Mingji Wang
Visual designer: Effie Gu
Spatial design: Yuan Xiang
Costume designer: Jaxi Liu
Deviser: Jiuming Duan
Dramaturg: Dayou Geng
Graphic Designer: Yitong Feng
Videographer: Leo Zhu
With thanks to Peter Case, Julian Maynard-Smith, Nick Wood, Nohar Lazarovich, Anna Smith, Calum Perrin Lynne, Zichun Wang, Jamie Liu, Jiaxi Wang, Yifan Wu, Mark Cunningham, Royal Central School of Speech and Drama.