and the home of the [placeholder]-S1E1_pilotComfortStation (2023)

08/25/2023 (Fri) 7:30-9:30pm
Comfort Station, 2579 N Milwaukee Ave, Chicago, IL 60647
// missionStatement
//sense is an experimental time-based artist collective that features new media, technologies,
performance, video, sound, installation, and beyond. It focuses on experimental theater
production through large-scale collaborations. As a safe space for experimental expressions,
this troupe develops synergy through unleashing concealed potentials that would otherwise be
unachievable in solo practice. By fostering a common ground to practice and cultivate
collectivism, individual expertise transcends into a collective experience.
Intermarrying new media, happenings, and performances, we expand audiences’ and
performers’ perceptions, experiences, and consciousness through immersive, improvisatory,
interactive, devised, participatory, and site-specific theatrical models. Our team fluidity ensures
a unique experience across different productions. Besides revolutionizing the art-making
process, we encourage audiences to elevate their role as spectators into active participants,
hence enabling the art-making process for a wider population. By activating the entire venue
space and deskilling in arts, we invite artistic inclusivity to empower the community through
actions.
//sense cultivates two maxims: “making good communities better” and “finding arts in all things.”
// curatorialStatement
and the home of the [placeholder] is a series of //sense’s experimental community theater works
that explores the meaning of home through actions, performances, new media, technologies,
and beyond.
“Placeholder” denotes a temporary state of unknown. It holds a value that is yet to be input,
gathered, and defined. //sense, despite being a Chicago-based collective, houses members
from all over the country and the globe. As newcomers, we explore the value and meaning of
“home” together as it holds a special place in our hearts. To celebrate our diverse cultural
experiences, we devise performance modules that reflect our upbringing and encounters. We
explore how our diverse backgrounds and expertise create a harmonious space for us to co-
exist simultaneously.
“Home” holds different meanings to us, and through our large-scale new media installation,
performance arts, and actions, we create a superimposed state of a temporary “homecoming”
and the generation of a new “home.” Opening the door of our “temporary new home” to the
public, we invite participation and interactions. Participants and audiences are welcome to
"knock" these portals and "seek" their individual paths, stories, and narratives that we create to
their liking. No matter which journey they pursue in our theater, this new “home” is leading us to
heal collective trauma, revisit memories, and make a good community better through arts.
We might be away from home, but as Peter Griffin says “When you are here, you are family.”
-gordon fung
ess.org/events