A sci-fi performance created with light and sound, envisioning a utopian future.

<Diaspora> proposes a utopian future through imagination, rather than dystopian gloom. This sensory experience—gathering together with other bodies in a dark space to witness the future—is both a question and a hope about what kind of world we can envision.

<Diaspora> begins with a scene depicting the birth of a digital consciousness, drawn from the opening chapter of Greg Egan's science fiction novel of the same name. Set amidst a visual world of projections, holograms, and lasers, <Diaspora> offers a utopian interpretation of the relationship between humans and software, drawing the audience into a realm of unfamiliar yet visceral sensations. Employing an array of instrumentation, from the seat-shaking sub-bass pulsations of old school synthesizers, to ethereal electric violin lines and the purity of the acoustic human voice, this ensemble of extraordinary musicians evoke the complex and multi-layered build of a digital life-form.

A non-body human being, imagined through the intertwining of ideas from mathematics, biology, and genetics, is reborn in this performance through sound and light within a digital space called the conceptory (a conceptual womb). The piece takes shape in three movements, structured in an abstract and sequential form based on the opening chapter of the original novel. Following an increasingly complex flow of perception and interconnectedness, it traces the journey of a single consciousness coming online.