UBU THE IMMERSIVE

Set design. It is the act of placing a make-believe world on the stage. Simple. Now it is everywhere. Ubiquitous. It is more of a task to turn the set 'off''. The layered realities we have with wide-screens, mini screens, iPad in beds influencing sleep astound one. 400 time more information since 1996. We are compelled to view as well as to produce....like sharing so that we can get more Facebook likes. The tool has become us. Yet so have the ambiguousness of the spaces. Where are we in a 'reality' that mirrors our thoughts and even our identities, roles, back to us? It is as if we have escaped Plato's cave and wee 'portals' everywhere. What was in the original 'scenography', pompous as it is, that made us acceptant of artifice as environment? Ubu is and isn't a fable, as stated in the title. It is very much a contemporary allegory that in many ways is happening in the world as I write and you read this.