Here is the message you asked for … don’t tell anyone else ;-) from China

TAKE a peek through this window on the world of young women obsessed with their phones and other digital devices, appearing for the OzAsia Festival: Here is the message you asked for … don’t tell anyone else ;-)

Here is the message you asked for ... Don't tell anyone else ;-) by Sun Xiaoxing

TAKE a peek through this window on the world of young women obsessed with their phones and other digital devices, appearing for the OzAsia Festival.

As director Sun Xiaoxing of Beijing explains, the interactive performance takes its name Here Is The Message You Asked For … Don’t Tell Anyone Else ;-) from the opening line of a computer virus called “Melissa”.

“These are the first words she says to the computers that are going to be captured by the virus,” he said.

“It sounds like a flirtatious temptation from Melissa, appears cute and harmless, but the message is full of viciousness.”

And the message for audiences the world over is: Be afraid, be very afraid. Xiaoxing wants to everyone to reflect on their own experiences of “watching amateurs live-streaming their life through the small screen of the cell phone” and feel some sense of fear and trepidation in hindsight.

Xiaoxing believes China is facing the harsh reality that some kind of “deformation” is occurring in the younger generation as they spend more time living in two dimensions.

“Chinese young people, especially women, who are also the major force of cultural consumption, are becoming hybrid humankind with evolution from physical to linguistic manners, even though there are objections against this evolution,” he said.

“The reality is being influenced and changed in an imperceptible manner.”

The audience is invited to engage with the actors by exchanging text messages using the social media smart phone application WeChat, which has become popular in China with more than 1 billion users.

Much of the performance is improvised and the audience receives simultaneous translations explaining what is happening on stage in relation to the WeChat group chat.

Performers will also send pictures and video chat.

SEE: Here is the message you asked for … don’t tell anyone else ;-) Space Theatre, November 1-3.

TICKETS: ozasiafestival.com.au