Tale of Tales' VR Installation Cricoterie Channels Tadeusz Kantor's Theater

Key facts

• Cricoterie is a VR installation/performance by Tale of Tales (Auriea Harvey and Michaël Samyn) under the label Song of Songs.
• It was created during a 2017 residency at the Tadeusz Kantor House, supported by the Tadeusz Kantor Foundation, Adam Mickiewicz Institute, and Flanders Audiovisual Fund.
• The title combines Cricot 2 (Kantor's company) with Kantor's name.
• The work features a virtual stage with a wardrobe containing objects from Kantor's plays, including mannequins from The Dead Class and Wielopole, Wielopole.
• Crows disrupt the arranged objects, introducing chaos and glitches as intentional elements.
• Harvey and Samyn describe Cricoterie as 'a study of failure' and 'things that don't work as they should.'
• The duo's Realtime Art Manifesto (2006) argues real-time 3D rendering is the most significant new creative technology since oil on canvas.
• Cricoterie is available for free on itch.io and is designed as an event with a VR user and an external audience.
• Harvey and Samyn began as net artists under Entropy8Zuper in the late 1990s.
• Their influential 'nongame' The Graveyard (2008) features an elderly woman walking through a cemetery.
• After Sunset's commercial disappointment, they returned to The Endless Forest and Cathedral-in-the-Clouds.
• Samyn stated at Game Happens: 'We want to accept the software as if it has its own life and expressiveness.'