TEMPS D'IMAGES

BERTIE

Rita Barbosa

BERTIE is a virtual reality (VR) experience for the stage, in which one group of people meet within an immersive video game conceived specifically for this project. Thrown into the apocalyptic scenario
of a multiplayer online game about to end, the player-performers use VR goggles and avatars to explore a tecno-melancholic terrain, replete with piles of digital trash and abandoned characters, and deal with questions of legacy, what it means to be an orphan and of waste.

BERTIE interconnects theatres, cities and distant audiences, creating a hybrid experience, simultaneously presential and digital, which can occur in three different cities, three separate spaces within the same city or three rooms within a single building. The show explores themes such as techno-anxiety, new forms of empathy, and gaming communities, prioritizing sustainability and environmental conservation by reinventing models of circulation and promoting a remote working
flux which reduces dislocation and the transportation of stage elements. We propose a new ethics for digital socializing: we do not reject technology but we reclaim the political space within these
environments that are dominated by Big Tech.

Rita Barbosa (1979, Porto) is a director and visual artist, with a degree in Digital Arts from the Sound and Image course at UCP (2002). Her work is mainly developed in the moving image, crossing film, performance and the visual arts, deconstructing processes and thinking of art as an esthetic game. She
directed 2ª Pessoa (2022), an internationally awarded film, Amigos Imaginários (2019), Jogo de Enganos (2021) and À Noite Fazem-se Amigos (2016).