Episode 28: The Laboratory for the Development of Substitute Materials

By Christopher Hudgens

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The Laboratory for the Development of Substitute Materials (LDSM) is a diverse collective of theatre artists with backgrounds in performance, literary, and visual arts, individually working in a range of performance traditions with such Chicago companies as Redmoon Theater, 500 Clown, CollaborAction, and the Neo-Futurists. The members of the LDSM first collaborated on Impossible Cities: A Utopian Experiment in 2007, directed by Seth Bockley and produced by Walkabout Theatre Company at the Peter Jones Gallery in Chicago. The show consisted of performances, music, and an art exhibition curated by Angela Tillges, all on the theme of utopia. The LDSM formally came into existence later that same year with the instigation of Theoretical Isolation: A Post-Atomic Experiment, a collaboratively generated performance which premiered in 2009 at the urban design project Arcosanti in Arizona and was subsequently presented in Chicago at the Neo-Futurarium. The LDSM has received grants from the Center for Interdisciplinary Research in the Arts at Northwestern University and from the Chicago Department of Cultural Affairs, held residencies at the University of Chicago and Arcosanti, and taught workshops at Arizona State University and in the Arcosanti community. The LDSM continues to make and teach collectively devised, research-based performance, which blends physical, visual, and textual approaches to consider a broad range of inquiries prompted by the spatial, the communal, and the urban.

The LDSM performs an excerpt from Theoretical Isolation: A Post-Atomic Experiment, a collaboratively generated performance inspired by the development of the atomic bomb at Los Alamos, Shakespeare’s The Tempest, and the urban design laboratory Arcosanti. This original interdisciplinary work sets scientific experimentation, Congressional testimony, and old-fashioned magic tricks against the backdrop of Arcosanti’s unique architectural environment. Inspired by the discovery that The Tempest was among the literary texts discussed by scientists at Los Alamos, the performance investigates historical and fictional characters who retreated from civilization in order to re-imagine it, working in geographic isolation to create books and bombs with the potential to change the world. Theoretical Isolation: A Post-Atomic Experiment focuses on a few of these individuals: J. Robert Oppenheimer, the physicist who oversaw the Manhattan Project; Prospero, Shakespeare’s most famous magician; and Paolo Soleri, the architect who founded Arcosanti as a prototypical alternative approach to urban design.