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Many of our hours, days, weeks blend together.

Many of us spend much of this time on Zoom. Zoom is mostly the same every time: The same screen, the same people, the same sounds.

This Zoom experience is very different.

In this workshop, you will:

Create an underwater scene by filtering your computer’s camera through a blue DIY lens.
Watch a 1-minute excerpt from this short film to get inspiration for producing an “underwater puppet musical.”
Create a puppet using materials from your home. The puppet will be a creature that lives in the sea.
Write the lyrics for a short song that your puppet will perform for us. The song will be inspired by whatever is weighing on you right now that you’d like to get off your chest.
Perform a puppet musical, with every participant taking turns.
We will celebrate with each other before returning to our lives on land.

This workshop is an exploration of what Zoom can feel like when we use it as a platform to express ourselves instead of one where we’re asked to accomplish things.

In this format, you will be able to freely choose how to display your name, your voice, and your face on camera. You will be released from any expectation of excellence and achievement, because underwater puppet musicals on Zoom are extremely rare and potentially unprecedented. The stakes are very low.

To prepare, consider collecting a few materials in advance:

For the DIY lens filter: A small square of plastic (saran) wrap and blue sharpie, or blue cellophane, or a plastic bag with blue ink
For the puppet: Two chopsticks (disposable or reusable), tape (masking or scotch), scissors, semi-stiff paper (ideally cardstock, but cardboard, printer paper, or the inside of a cereal box all work), and puppet-decorating supplies (optional, could include anything you can imagine using to create an underwater creature)

Inspiration:

The Burden, a short film by Niki Lindroth von Bahr
Puppets Unlimited, published by Tara Books
You'll Like This Film Because You're In It: The Be Kind Rewind Protocol (Michel Gondry)
My thinking about Zoom as a theater is captured in this book I made in 2018

About this whole thing:

This project was the culminating experience of a class called Teaching as Art offered by the School for Poetic Computation.