A science fiction saga about corporate boybands and holographic newscasters crowdcontrolling a society of clones, Alexandro Segade's Future St. is a speculative, multimedia theater epic exploring desire, surveillance, and the sinister forces of normalization. As California becomes Clonifornia, a homosexual police state enforces strict marriage codes among the monitored populace, and an intersectional resistance— made up of queer mutant dissidents and an ancient feminist underground—plots its overthrow.
An original work conceived as a response to the political shifting position of gay culture in the larger society –– from the debate over marriage equality to the emergence of right wing figures such as Peter Thiel –– Future St.appropriates the heterotopias proposed by the science fiction novels of Octavia E. Butler, Ursula K. LeGuin, Samuel R. Delany and Philip K Dick, as well as X-Men comic books, movies like Blade Runner, Looker, The Matrix and World on a Wire, and myriad video games and anime.
As Segade says, “Through re-enactment and role-play as response, I hope to foster a critical relationship to the source material -- and not shy away from difficulty -- inserting my own subjective relationship, tapping into the way science fiction has shaped my desires and even anger. There is a relationship to cosplay and fan fiction – even homage — but this is an original work that resists the genre it uses in order to reflect my own ambivalence at having my imagination disfigured by the spectacles I saw as a kid. Produced by the dominant capitalist culture and figured as our future, these commercial properties owned by corporations repeatedly imagine a straight white future, which is in itself an act of violence. I want to think about something else.”
The play completes a cycle of experimental performances Segade has produced over the last seven years, including Replicant VS Separatist at REDCAT and LAXART in LA and the Yerba Buena Center in San Francisco; The Holo Library at the Armory, Pasadena and UCR ArtsBlock, Riverside; and Boy Band Audition at the Time-Based Arts Festival in Portland Oregon.
Written, directed and performed by Segade, with videos by artists Amy Ruhl, Daniel Leyva, and Robert Hickerson and a cast of NY-based performers including Brian McQueen, Jamel Mack, Nicholas Gorham, Lisa Corinne Davis, and C. Bain. Music by Mateo Segade and Scott Martin, with a live DJ set by Mateo Segade. Martin Carrillo mixing and Heardrum providing sound design support, RF coordination, and show control programming.