2021

Cole Lewis, Patrick Blenkarn, Sam Ferguson (Canada)

Image description: A woman with a kind expression holds a thick stack of papers as though she's delivering a presentation. Behind her on the stage, an out-of-focus screen shows a plainly-dressed video game character in a sterile environment.
ANNEX
  • Fri Jan 23 7:30PM
  • Sat Jan 24 2PM
Price $39/$59
Runtime 90-120min

Co-Presented by

  • Touchstone Theatre

Memory // Simulation // Afterlife

Under the glow of a flickering screen, a daughter reconstructs her deceased father. Pixel by pixel, contradiction by contradiction.

2021 is a live performance where theatre, AI, and video-game storytelling converge, blurring the boundary between human remembrance and machine logic. An audience member steps into the role of Brian, an unhoused veteran reliving his final weeks inside a looping digital hospital: a labyrinth of corridors, bureaucratic dead ends, and fleeting human contact. Guided by his daughter’s narration, fragments of data become playable memory. Each decision glitches reality a little more.

How do we provide dignity in death to those we fundamentally disagree with? Part elegy, part experiment, 2021 exposes the tenderness and terror of digital resurrection. It asks not whether machines can think, but whether memory itself is a kind of simulation.

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Artist Bio

Cole Lewis, Patrick Blenkarn, Sam Ferguson

Guilty by Association (GbA) is an interdisciplinary performance collective that shifts its process with each new project. Led by Co-Artistic Directors, Cole Lewis + Patrick Blenkarn, they seek to expand what theatre can do, devising work from design ideas, exploring modes of storytelling, and scheming to fuse media to the stage.

The Elbow Theatre dissects the human condition. We develop shows that question accepted truths. Our productions engage our audiences with the realities of our world. Through process and production, The Elbow presents theatre that promotes caring for, and understanding of, each other. The Elbow was founded in 2012 by Itai Erdal and is based out of Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada.

Cole Lewis (she/her) is a mom and mad theatre artist from St. Catharines, Ontario. She specializes in creating live performance from design ideas, exploring new modes of storytelling, and fusing technologies to the stage. Her practice includes directing, playwriting, and the design of moving image works. Twice nominated for Dora-Awards, Cole’s practice uses humour, design, and technology to explore notions of class and violence, expose questions of bias, and unsettle standard conceptions of ‘truth’ to explore alternative futures. She has an MFA in Directing from Yale and her thoughts on performance have been shared at LMDA, Howlround, FOLDA, Yale CCAM, and Canadian Theatre Review.

Patrick Blenkarn (he/him) is an artist working at the intersection of performance, game design, and visual art. His research-based practice revolves around the themes of language, labour, and democracy, with projects ranging in form from video games and card games to stage plays and books, with subjects as diverse as the labour of donkeys to the valuation of art to historical date farming practices in Iraq. He is a polyglot, programmer, animator, musician, and stage director. He is also the co-creator of asses.masses and co-founder of videocan, the national video archive of performance documentation.

Sam Ferguson (he/him) is an award-winning sound designer/composer from Toronto. After moving to Vancouver to study under acclaimed electroacoustic music composer Berry Truax he returned to Toronto where he became involved with theatre. This experience led him to enroll in the Yale School of Drama where he received an MFA for sound design. Since graduating he has returned to Toronto and has been working in the industry ever since.

Artist Links

Cole Lewis

Patrick Blenkarn

Guilty by Association

Partners

Venue

ANNEX

823 Seymour St, Vancouver, BC

Content Advisory

Flashing lights

Audience interaction, sounds of bombs & gunshots, racist behaviour, death, ableism, mental health struggles

Showtimes & Tickets

Standard: $39 // Generous: $59

Fri Jan 23 7:30PM
Sat Jan 24 2PM
Post-show talkback
Performance Notes Standard Generous
Fri Jan 23 7:30PM
Sat Jan 24 2PM Post-show talkback

If you have the financial means, consider choosing the Generous price option. Learn more about Choose-Your-Rate pricing.

Credits

Co-Creation, Data Curation, Performance Cole Lewis Co-Creation, Programming, Performance Patrick Blenkarn Co-Creation, Programming, Music + Sound Design Sam Ferguson 3D Modelling and Environments Eric Ing 2D Illustration and Animation Clarissa Picolo Lighting Design Itai Erdal Scenic Design Helen Yung Projection Design + Technologist Wladimiro A. Woyno R. Choreography Heidi Strauss Technical Direction Alex Grozdanis AI Consultant David Rokeby Disability Producer Anika Vervecken Dramaturgical Consultant Fatma Sarah Elkashef

Produced by Guilty by Association Co-Produced by The Elbow Theatre and National Arts Centre of Canada’s National Creation Fund

Developed in part through Mitu’s Artists at Home and presented in part by Mitu’s Expansion Works Developed with the support of Canada Council for the Arts, Tarragon Theatre, Nightswimming Theatre, Design + Technology Lab, The Chrysalis, DART at Brock University, Playwrights Workshop Montreal, Precursor Lab, and BMO Lab Early Phase Collaborators Emma Cuzzocrea, Ezri Fenton, Laura Maieron, Shaan Tahir-Mehdi, and Daibei Wang

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