Interrupt, was a retro-engineered multimedia performance installation that premiered in fall 2000.

Resisting the temptation to put the latest shiny new technology on display, Interrupt explored the underside of progress - meltdown, misfire and miscommunication. Within the performance space, audiences participated in the operation of a mechanized, yet functioning dystopia where ‘high’ technology served the most crude ends. With Interrupt, Liminal uncovered the ambiguity between the archaic and the futuristic, the living and the programmed, and the alchemy of base materials transformed into substances of a different order. Moreover, Interrupt was about letting someone experience something they didn’t quite expect and then seeing how long they would play with it before they get bored again.

Interrupt was directed and programmed by John Berendzen and created by over a dozen Liminal company members and invited artists who collaborated in the design, engineering, rehearsal and production. Performers included Rich Southwick, Amanda Boekelheide, Jennifer Olson and Linda Miles.

Link to the concept paper

Text used in the production

Press
Willamette Week, November 15, 2000

List of technology used:

1. One pulse oximeter

2. Seven personal computers

3. 11 monitors

4. Eight VCRs

5. One video camera

6. One vid-bot 2000 video switcher (handmade)

7. Three actors

8. One record player

9. One slide projector

10. One Texas Instruments Speak-N-Spell electronic game

11. One video projector

12. Eight speakers

13. One video switcher

14. One auto-reverse portable cassette player

15. Three CD players

16. One four-track minidisc player

17. Four stereo amplifiers

18. One mixing console

19. Three mixed-media sculptures

20. Three telephone handsets 

21. One dot matrix printer