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.