SOH10 the Opera (2003)

• 72%
• 2003
• Drama
• Music
• Science Fiction
• Soh Alex Vermeulen
• Kate Strong
• Frank Feys
• Kristiaan Horvers

The opera begins at the end. The woman has just experienced a terrible accident, a crash of both the computer and her brain to which the computer is connected. The first two parts take us through the reconstruction of her story, the use of her body, speech, memory and the data banks and central brain of the computer. She shares genetic, organic material with the computer as the computer replaces parts of her body with its cybernetic material. The relationship is unclear to both of them. Where reality exists is in a floating multi-layered network of hallucinations, fractured memories and her externalized inner life viewed on the computers screens, the film itself. She is physically present, witnessing and participating in the story on the stage, the computer, consisting of screens, sounds, musical icons and a glass central unit on which the woman performs her rituals of reconstruction. The story unfolds to her and to us simultaneously in a quest to understand what caused the accident and what events led up to it. In the final part we arrive at the beginning and a realization that she must repeat the experiment, which caused the original accident. In the private isolation of her lab we watch her move deeper into her explorations, unclear as to where the borders between her and the computer are, the two now, are intimately wrapped inside each other. This discovery of a new consciousness in the combination of human and computer inner life must be carried to its final conclusion. As she and the computer transcend the limits of the body, mind and machine they are no longer possible to perceive, here the opera disappears.