Ed. note – Zed.to’s Elenna Mosoff will be speaking at Broken Pencil’s first-ever Canzine Symposium, taking place on Saturday October 20. Register for the Symposium here.
When it comes to popular art, the route to the end of the world has many twists and turns. There’s the all-consuming bombast of a Roland Emmerich film like 2012, where the camera pans lovingly over entire cityscapes and expanses of land, crumbling to dust. Then there are films like Don McKellar’s Last Night where the end of the world is depicted in beautiful moments of urban disruption and quiet, almost mundane activities. And as the year 2012 lurches into its latter half, who among us hasn’t indulged in a moment of wicked speculation, thinking of the ways the world can — and maybe will — burn?
The people behind Zed.to have — and they want their version of the apocalypse to change the way you think. The seeds of the project were planted four years ago, when five friends — Trevor Haldenby, sister Martha Haldenby, David Fono, Byron Laviolette and Elenna Mosoff — were commiserating over their dissatisfaction with their careers and the state of theatre in Toronto.
“We got together for brunches and talked about what we were doing — what we liked and didn’t like,” says Trevor Haldenby. “We talked about how we all had different ideas and skill sets to bring to the table, and how we could create a project that would communicate the future to people and get them to step back and critically reflect upon their lives — their city. What would it take to do theatre that reflects the real social change going on all around us?”
Inspired by Max Brooks’ zombie outbreak-as-oral history novel World War Z, the group began to look at other examples of end-of-the-world narratives depicted in popular culture, determining which tropes were common but still useful, and which ones were overused.
“We liked the idea of societal collapse from multiple angles,” says Haldenby. “We liked the idea of a prologue — an origin story to the apocalypse. Technology is shaped by us, and reflects human values and morals and ethics, and anything that goes wrong techno-wise represents something going wrong socially. What are the human decisions that contribute to that? “
They began mapping out the story, and soon, a primary protagonist began to emerge. “We thought, ‘Wouldn’t it be great if the character was a corporation?’” says Haldenby. “Until the end, they would tell you that everything is going to be okay, and you should keep going, but the deeper your involvement, the more you realize — you’re being betrayed.”
Enter ByoLogyc — a corporation that creates “lifestyle biotechnology solutions” for consumers, and is ultimately responsible for the demise of civilization. ByoLogyc provides a range of ominous-sounding products, like ByoBreath — a mouth spray that turns you into a “walking air purifier”; ByoRenew, a capsule pill that helps “change what’s inside of you to whatever you need it to be,” and even ByoBaby, which the company promises will act as your unborn child’s “biological tutor.” ByoLogyc is bolstered by an in-depth website that features clean, modern design and the creepily cheerful stock photography-style shots that are de rigeur for pharmaceutical companies and beauty product advertisers. There’s a detailed timeline of the company’s history and a full roster of “employees” on deck, including a social media coordinator, an IT director, an unnervingly twitchy lab-coat-sporting head of research and a CEO named Chet Getram. Getram in particular displays the sort of sharklike charisma one might expect from the head of a slightly shadowy biotech corporation. That’s the beauty of ByoLogyc: Its goals are transparent, and we’re meant to feel wary about its true intentions. “ByoLogyc is so confident about its vision of the future that it’s sugarcoating the presentation — but not what’s being said,” says Haldenby.
The demands of portraying ByoLogyc in a credible way through multimedia channels meant the Zed.to project had to move beyond the medium of theatre. The group officially formed a collective called The Mission Business and continued harnessing their skills — as actors, directors, design and critical theory students, event coordinators and website/game designers — to build a wider ByoLogyc mythos, which has included a host of Twitter accounts for ByoLogyc “staff,” a plethora of videos explaining their products and mandate, a Versatile Intern Program open to the public (featuring a hilarious series of questionnaires and a constant array of new developments), a spin-off conspiracy website called ByoLeaks, and even a comic book.
Meanwhile, an independent online community (including a Facebook group and reality gaming message board) has formed around the ByoLogyc narrative, devoting itself to decoding their messages and corporate-speak, unearthing “leaked” documents and unraveling the shroud of mystery surrounding the story, bit by bit. This level of interactivity is huge and further cements the purpose of the group to make the audience active players in the story. “The blurring of the lines between audience and performer extends to every platform, not just theatre,” Haldenby says. “The broader communities on Facebook and message boards are extending this viral metaphor we’ve created by ‘infecting’ other people to talk about it. It fits not only within our subject matter, but our modes of storytelling too.”
Of course, all of this swirling information is contributing to the broader narrative of Zed.to, which has begun to unfold over a series of live events. It began with a “ByoLogyc 20th Anniversity” celebration in March, a NXNEi presentation (where delegates participated in an interactive ByoLogyc presentation that unraveled into a whirlwind of panicked interrogations and mouth-swabbing), a stint of Fringe shows “launching” a new product called BioRenew, a Nuit Blanche installation and the “Final Event,” set to take place in late October. A major portion of Zed.to’s funding came from an Indiegogo campaign in April, and the $20,000 goal was raised in a dramatic zero-hour coup, with donations pouring in from major players like Margaret Atwood and other members of the Canadian design, theatre and art communities.
The Final Event may signify the end of the Zed.to storyline, but Haldenby says the story of ByoLogyc will by no means conclude. The goal, after all, is to involve the audience and get them emotionally and spiritually engaged with what’s happening in the world around them. If Zed.to is successful, it may mean a new era for interactive, multi-platform performance art in Toronto and beyond, sprouting from beneath the ByoLogyc umbrella. The infection, it would seem, is spreading.
“We’re making a sandbox that contains a get-started-quick kit,” says Haldenby. “And once we’re done, we can bring it back to the sandbox and leave it for others to play with.”
The latest installment of the Zed.to saga continues with the Nuit Blanche installation ByoLogyc: Patient Zero. It takes place on September 29 – 30 at Church of the Holy Trinity, 10 Trinity Square.