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licktoad (lik'tod), adj. 1. the act of licking the infamous Bufo Aolvarius Psychedelic Toad, known to secrete an hallucinogenic hormone as a deterrence to predators. The toxin is secreted through glands located on the toads neck and feet when agitated; episodes of toadlicking often turn up in the newspapers as another generation of thrill seekers learns of the powerful but shortlived effects of the toads venom. 2. refers to the fairy tale The Frog Prince, where the princess kisses the ugly reptile - who miraculously turns into the Prince of her dreams. jubenia (joobe'niuh), n. composite name containing a collection of vowels and consonants constructed to evoke an image of womanliness, betrayal, sorcery and lust. licktoad jubenia (lik'tod joobe'niuh), n. the story of a powerful sorceress whose only weakness was her desire for a perfect prince. She kissed the frog, and began to hallucinate. |
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Licktoad Jubenia is an interactive gothic fairy tale set on an intelligent stage, where the members of the audience are the directors of the play, conductors of the orchestra, and the performers. By triggering invisible infrared light beams that criss-cross the stage, the audience brings the play to life. The characters, music and light changes in the play are hidden about the space and can only appear when the audience activate them. The audience can also kill off a character, music, or light by re-triggering the beam that brought it into being . In this way the play's narrative is always subject to the whim and chaos of its audience - an audience who is in control, yet who must seek to find the invisible keys to the puzzle. The atmosphere is conjured by a landscape of disembodied voices, strange music, light and shadows, suggesting cacophony or tranquility depending upon the number of audience and the tempo of their playfulness. At any given time all or none of the characters and the music may be active. |
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The six characters of Licktoad Jubenia represent fairy tale cliches: The evil queen, the innocent princess, the prince, the noble stable boy, the wicked wizard and the creaking voice of the narrator whispering in the wind. They each have their own agenda, motives, tasks to fulfill, destinies to play out. The locations of the story are set by the music; great rolling landscapes of bass frequencies, interrupted by the sharper plaintive sounds of a dying world. The characters' voices have been pitch modulated and distorted with harmonies in such a way that each represent a different strange musical instrument within this soundscape. The music provides the rolling hills and dark heaths, while the voices fly through like a migration of spirits. The play has been written with a recognisable chronology and narrative, but each characters' lines will be spoken at random, depending upon the users' interaction. It is a million to one chance that the audience could trigger the infrared beams in such a way that the play will perform itself in its original sequence ­ an infinite number of monkeys, if you will. The telling of the story is chaotic, encouraging the audience / listener / user / performer to respond emotionally and immediately, rather than intellectually, and each performance of the play is unique. Storytelling like this reduces the audient's capacity for intellectual processing, i.e. the instinct to make things logical, understandable, containable. The play itself,when subjected to these rigours of cut up and layer-pasting becomes intensified, its themes less rhetorical. Characters speak out of order, they appear in scenes that have nothing to do with them, they echo speeches inappropriately, ultimately illustrating the minds of men: childlike, nonsensical, impulsive, struggling to survive. Two sound examples (in Real Audio format) Demo excerpt (1:17, 155 KB): lj.chaos.ra |
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 The
stage is round, 6 metres in diameter and lifted 30 cm off the ground. 6 metal poles
- each 2.5 metres high - are placed at 60 degree intervals around the circumference
of the stage. The poles are adorned with twisted, organic gargoyles that stand sentinel,
casting strange shadows over the stage.Six red lights are mounted on the poles. These provide a slowly pulsing, womb-like ambience of light. Six larger theatre lights are mounted outside the stage, three of which give off a white light and three that are fitted with blue, purple and green filters. Together, these twelve lights are used to create a variety of lighting states, spaces of light and heat.  A speaker system consisting of 8 speakers and a subwoofer
is rigged off stage, broadcasting the sounds into the space. The music uses heavy
bass frequencies that set the room vibrating.The infrared beam interface consists of nine invisible beams crossing the space. Each beam is controlled by one transmitter unit and one reflector unit. These are mounted on the poles so that the total of 18 units are evenly distributed, three to every pole. The beams are placed so that all poles are connected, except around the perimeter of the stage. Users moving on the stage can trigger a beams every half metre. |
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The installation uses the following equipment:
The O2 monitors the photocells via an interface box that sends MIDI signals. Depending on the state of the beams, it then plays appropriate sounds to the relevant sound outputs. It also sends MIDI data to the lighting console to control the lights. The sound card for the O2 provides 8 channels of 24 bit digital audio output through an ADAT port. ADAT is an optical port which interleaves 8 channels of sound in one cable. This then has to be converted through a D/A converter that will take an ADAT input and give eight analog outputs. One such converter is the Korg 880 D/A (not to be confused with the 880 A/D which takes eight analog inputs and gives one ADAT output). All sound is stored in digital format on disk and indexed according to its content. All characters have their text divided into soundbytes (a few words, a phrase, a speech), as is the music. The computer keeps track of which soundbytes have been played and makes sure no repetition takes place until the character or music has exhausted its vocabulary. All sounds are in CD quality (44kHz, 16 bit). At any given time, 6 tracks are devoted to playing the characters and 2 tracks to playing music. The music consists of layers of sound, so that there will be a constant bottom layer of bass that is only rarely silenced and at least one layer for playing shorter pieces of music on top of this bottom layer. In addition, music may be mixed into the voices as they speak. |
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<Kate Pendry< is an English actress and writer living in Norway. She has formal training from Mountview Theatre School and has been a professional actor and writer for 10 years. She has written and had produced three plays: Lilith - The First Vampire for Nordic Black Theatre, Monster Madonnas for Oslo Stage Company and Cabaret Pigalle for Ø.J. Prod. Member of British Equity and Norsk Skuespillerforbund and a teacher at Nordic Black Theatre School. She currently works on a mix of traditional theatre work and experimental work involving new media. Marius Watz is a programmer and graphic designer specialising in computer generated graphics, using software he has developed for 2D and 3D graphics, animation and realtime grahics. He was exhibition coordinator for the Electra '96 electronic art exhibition at Henie-Onstad Art Center in Oslo, and regularly gives lectures on interactive media and electronic art. He is working on a research project at the National College of Art and Design in Oslo, working with algorithmic generation of form. Since 1993 he has worked as freelance graphic designer and illustrator both in print and multimedia, and is currently working on a mixture of commercial and non-commercial projects. Along with Knut Mork and Ståle Stenslie, Kate Pendry and Marius Watz created the interactive installation sense:less, commissioned for Electra '96. sense:less used virtual reality techniques for graphics and interacton, as well as diskbased playback of 3D sound and a custom-made bodysuit for tactile stimuli. sense:less was awarded an honourable mention at Prix Ars Electronica 96 and was exibited at Dutch Electronic Art Festival 96 in Rotterdam September 1996. Helge Sten is a composer and self-taught sound technician. He has done sound-based performances since 1987, working since 1991 under the name deathprod. In 1992 he was accepted to the Trondheim Academy of Art, where he studied sound and the use of noise in music at the Department of Intermedia until taking his diploma in 1996. He was an active member of the band Motorpsycho from 1992, but is today only involved in their studio work, producing and composing. He has worked as a sound technician for several Norwegian artists and has released several CDs, singles and MCs as deathprod. He is currently collaborating with artists, dancers and musicians on various projects. |
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Kate Pendry: Author: "Licktoad Jubenia - play". Voices + FX Marius Watz: Programming + design Helge Sten: Music + sound design Einar Hjeldnes: Stage design Torgeir Karlsen: Gargoyle design + illustrations Peter Watz: Infrared interface consultant Licktoad Jubenia is a co-production with NorConcert and Riksutstillinger. The project is supported by Riksutstillinger and Norsk Kassettavgiftsfond. We wish to thank NoTAM for support and technical assistance. |
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Licktoad Jubenia will premier at the Sixth International Conference on Cyberspace
(6Cyberconf) in Oslo June
1997. The 6Cyberconf exhibition is called
e~on
and will take place at Kunstnernes Hus from June 6th to June 15th. As part of our coproduction with NorConcert and Riksutstillinger, Licktoad Jubenia will tour Norway autumn 1997. |
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Watz+Pendry create and produce non-commercial projects involving theatre and electronic interactive media. Licktoad Jubenia is Watz+Pendry's debut project. Their next projects include devised plays with Accusative Cases Theatre in London and Pikene på Broen in Oslo using realtime animation and voice distortion, and "Audiovision" - a collaboration with Helge Sten to create a realtime animated visualisation of his music. |
Licktoad Jubenia is a gothic fairy tale. The attraction
of fairy tales is their seeming innocence, but their real power lies in their violence.
The princess loses her innocence (for which read virginity), kills her mother....and
they all lived happily ever after. Fairy tales always deal with sex, violence and
death. Yet they also deal with magic, hope, and the triumph of good over evil.