Published: September 24, 2009

Art is extending from something we passively observe into something we experience and encounter. New communication and wireless technologies are facilitating that transformation. The result is an organic growth of art that is based on our relationships with one another and with our environment. Relational, location-specific art is emerging as a way for artists to express the need for and the realization of the links that connect all of us.

An exciting example of this is the Foundry Theatre’s “The Provenance of Beauty,” a play about the South Bronx. The actors perform the entire show on a bus touring the ever-evolving neighborhood.

Earlier this summer, I sat in on a day of rehearsal.

Sunder Ganglani, one of the show’s producers, said, “The goal is to see if it’s possible for the real world to sustain the narrative.”

The play-tour is performed over wireless headphones from both live and recorded actors as the bus moves through the borough. Written by Claudia Rankine, the play is a series of about 30 poems (it depends on traffic), each which relates the audience to the Bronx.

“We’re creating a mirror-like landscape,” Ganglani said. “One with a consistent relation to the outside world.”

Sound designer Geoff Abbas interjected from the back of the bus, pointing to two cables that dangled over his head and out of the emergency exit porthole in the roof of the bus. “We’re creating a heightened reality.”

Abbas showed me where the cables lead, into a mixer balanced on a rear-facing seat. For the duration of the performance, the live actor, the prerecorded poems, as well as sound effects from a computer and live audio from the outside are mixed live. He said, “We’re trying to blend the worlds as much as possible.”

The hyper-real world takes a moment to settle into; while you hear the poetry and look at the landmarks, the people walking past on the street are their own soundtrack as well. You become involved with the Bronx.

Now, the piece, which has been in production for two years, is running.

As expected, there are no longer cables dangling from every seat and the crew is nearly invisible, looking like passengers on the back of the bus. It feels like a sightseeing tour. There is a woman up front on a microphone and video monitors displaying the route.

On this tour, the landmarks are not tourist attractions like the Bronx Zoo or Yankee Stadium, but rather churches, parks, sewage plants and graffiti art. The tour guide is the Bronx herself, and she speaks in poetic form.

Claudia Rankine, the poet commissioned by the Foundry to create the piece, says the format and ideas are something she never would have thought of, but something she now would like to do again.

“It’s fast and exciting,” she said. “like watching a new organism. Even though I’m a part of it, I’m also above, watching with my mouth wide open.”