Art and audio in the aisles

Grocery stores are dizzying places. So many choices. So much information. Flashy packaging. Conflicting priorities. I've stood staring and hopeless at the wall of soup cans too many times to count. Do I choose price or flavor or nutrition or ingredient or serving size or natural or local? If Donovan McNabb's mother eats this soup, shouldn't I?

So how nice would it be if someone replaced those voices in my head with an artful, musical take on the grocery store experience? Apparently, Rotozaza has done that. The UK-based artists have produced a half-hour audio tour of the supermarket -- ANY supermarket with more than 10 aisles.

Director Silvia Mecuriali is quoted in this Australian newspaper story:

“It plays around with the ideas of consumerism, reclaiming public space and using it in a different way,” Mercuriali said.

“It takes a mischievous swipe at the dominance of supermarket culture and consumerism.”
But you don’t have to buy anything and the people around you become extras in your own private “guerrilla-style” show.

The 30-minute tour guides the shopper through food sections, with the music changing to reflect the frozen food area, dairy, and fruit and vegetables.

I'll review the audio if I can get a copy -- right now it's only available to people who buy tickets for another theater performance in Melbourne.

But here's what's interesting. This is a placecast that isn't tied to a specific place, but rather to a KIND of place. The audience has to be somewhere to appreciate it, but not necessarily in the same place it was recorded. This works because grocery stores in much of the world now have more similarities than differences -- a fact worthy of reflection in itself.

This isn't historical interpretation, but rather societal deconstruction. And audio is still the perfect medium. "Wearing headphones and anonymous behind your trolley [shopping cart]," the project's Web site says, "you are guided around the aisles immersed in a private world, as the carefully constructed sound scape overlays a fictional world that blurs the real with the imaginary."

Using sound as the primary medium allows the audience to still participate in the physical world, while their thoughts about that place are being directed and informed by the audio program. There's no need to stare at a smartphone screen or tap away on a laptop keyboard.

What other places in our world are similar enough for this kind of placecast? Would it work anywhere beyond the homogeneous world of retail stores, fast food joints...maybe airports?

I'll explore this whole concept further, driven in part by this intriguing line from the Rotozaza Wondermart press release:

Rotozaza are the pioneers of Autoteatro, a new kind of performance where, by receiving and following instructions through headphones, audience members assume the roles of both actor and observer and thereby create a self-generating piece of theatre.

Of course that makes everyone else in the supermarket unwitting extras in your own private performance. This sounds so much better than staring at soup cans.

(photos by Ant Hampton via Rotozaza)