Inferno is a robotic performance inspired by the representation of the different levels of hell as described in Dante’s Inferno or the Singaporean Haw Par Villa’s Ten Courts of Hell (which is based on a Chinese Buddhist representation). […] In the many depictions of Hell, the punishments are always carried on the human body and not directly at the psychological level. The excruciating pain and also the eternal aspect of the punishment induces the latter.
The specificity of this performance resides in the fact that the different machines involved in the show are installed on the viewers’ body. The public then becomes an active part of the performance. Sometimes the viewers are free to move; sometimes they are in a partial or entire submission position, forced by the machines to act/react in a certain way. Some mechanical elements coerce the viewers in performing certain movements; others induce a physical reaction from them. For this performance of about an hour long, we have built 25 wearable robotic structures very similar to exoskeletons.
Bill Vorn