The Art Project

Woman with her head in tangled cords. Fotograf: Jens Peter Engedal

Lost in the cloud?

OmniPresence is an art project created by the performance group Kassandra Production to dig into central questions of privacy, freedom and control in our digital age.

And the deeper we dug, the more absurd it got.

Most of us tend to live in blissful ignorance about what happens with our personal data - the new currency of our time. We have created a new normal in which we willingly give away our personal information in return for convenient apps, seamless user experiences, connectedness and likes. Big data harvesting is to a large extent fuelled by our own vanity and basic instincts. We have become users, addicts, bio-banks and cash cows, controlled and manipulated by big business. And we’re stuck.

How did we get here? What is the impact on our free will, when privacy becomes a commodity? What happens to free choice, when our opinions are shaped by snack media and echo chambers? How do these invisible mechanisms affect modern democracy?

With OmniPresence we put forward the questions that need to be asked. And we shed light on the fact that privacy is gone; that we are public by default – private through action.


Campaign eye logo and tagline on the omnibus. Fotograf: Jens Peter Engedal

Digital self-defence

Remain calm. Avoid panic. Breathe!
Observe and question your reality.
Check your privacy settings.
Make a web cam cover and a signal jammer pouch for your smartphone.
Break free of your echo chamber – like something you loathe,
engage with people you disagree with.
Digital detox: Go off line, make yourself a shot of fresh made juice.
Use a VPN and encryption software to transmit sensitive data.
Counterstrike ignorance - seek knowledge.
Go to crypto parties in your local area.
Discuss the right to privacy across generations and interests.
Support ethical alternatives and indie-nets; go peer-to-peer, keep third parties out.
Troll politicians online and demand knowledge about privacy violations.


Actors dressed as digital knights. Fotograf: Jens Peter Engedal

No one shall be subjected to arbitrary interference with his privacy, family, home or correspondence, nor to attacks upon his honour and reputation. Everyone has the right to the protection of the law against such interference or attacks.

Universal Declaration of Human Rights, Article 12

The Project

OmniPresence is a strange hybrid of intervention art, performance installation, awareness campaign and mobile crypto party. It is an “omni-channel art project” that unfolds as:

  • An interactive boot camp in and around the mobile ‘OmniBus’.
  • A free online webinar via live streaming.
  • Virtual storytelling about our corporate undercover identity as OmniPresence Consulting.
  • A 5-minute film and a play based on the performance, as part of the Plurality of Privacy in 5-minute plays (P3M5) commissioned by Goethe-Institut, Washington DC.

OmniPresence is an interactive art project with the ambition to intervene and engage with our modern society. We are trying to grasp the complexity of a reality in which everything is connected in a seemingly chaos. All parameters of the art project - the OmniBus, the performance, the text, music, video, live stream, film and virtual storytelling – have been developed simultaneously in order to reflect the complexity of our reality.


The actors on stage inside the omnibus. Fotograf: Jens Peter Engedal

Goethe-Institut, Washington DC, P3M5 + direct link to eventpage
Warehouse 9, Wanderlost Digital Art Festival
Bora Bora
CPH Stage
Musikhuset Aarhus
Musikhuset Aarhus, debate
Kassandra Production

Credits

The performance material is created in a devised process between Annika B. Lewis, Kristofer Krarup and Anne Hübertz Brekne.

Idea and mis-en-scène: Annika B. Lewis
Performers: Annika B. Lewis and Kristofer Krarup
Dramaturge: Anne Hübertz Brekne
Set designer: Filippa Berglund
Music and video: Anders Krøyer and Jens Mønsted, guest appearance Steen Dongo
Internet architect: Jonas Smedegaard
Web design: Siri Reiter and Jonas Smedegaard
Lighting consultant: Morten Ladefoged
PR and marketing: Jakob D.A. Nicolaisen and Anne Hübertz Brekne
Stage hand: Jimmi Nørgaard
Set construction: Lumen
Costumes: Bodil Buonaventzen and Lone Øvig
Production manager: Karen Nordentoft
Production assistant: Camilla Rasmussen
Photos: Jens Peter Engedal and Mukul Ranjan
Graphic design/layout: Helge Dürrfeld/TheArtCom
Film teaser: Christoffer Brekne
Administration and PR: Kassandra Production

PRODUCED BY Kassandra Production in co-production with Bora Bora and in collaboration with Musikhuset Aarhus, IT University of Copenhagen, Goethe-Institut Washington DC, Performing Arts Platform, CAVI, CPH STAGE and others.

SUPPORTED BY the Danish Arts Foundation, Bikubenfonden, Oda & Hans Svenningsens Fond, the City of Aarhus and the City of Copenhagen.

THANK YOU Board members of Kassandra Production, Nikolaj Sonne, Peter Kofod, Bora Bora crew, Mimi Lund, Louise Kirkegaard, Gitte Skytte, John Moletress, Wilfried Eckstein, Sylvia Blume, Scandinavian Congress Center, Theatre Republique, Kjell Yngve Petersen, Morten Lervig, Between Music, PROSA/Privacy Help Desk and others.


The omnibus in Aarhus. Fotograf: Jens Peter Engedal