This piece is based on Manuela Infante’s Zoo, a post-colonialist performance in the format of a lecture by scientists who have discovered a lost tribe. Shinoda’s ZOO dramatically shifts focus to interrogate the nature of “the other.” It is a cutting edge performance that makes use of virtual reality technology to execute the concept of a Human Zoo.
The audience has assembled to witness the strangest animal of them all, the Human Being. Using VR, it creates spaces that continually expand, as well as spaces that unceasingly split apart and merge together. In these spaces, ZOO explores not only how human beings can be observed, but also whether or not it is even possible to observe other human beings.