As a result of the horrific nature of WW1, the 1920s saw an explosion of artistic changes that impacted the way

art was defined. The revolutionary movement was called Non- Realism or Modernism originating from Dadaism in Germany. It was an expression of art, music and theatre, which not only revolted against the extreme nature of realism but rejected societys ideology, structure and governance. The form combined categories such as Surrealism and Expressionism. The nature of non- realism can be summed by one of theatres most influential theorist, Antonin Artaud, who said, Theatre should affect the audience as much as possible, therefore a mixture of strange and disturbing forms of lighting, sound and performance techniques need to be used. This drama piece tells the story of a sentient artificial intelligence that lacks human emotion and is desperate to unlock that aspect of humanity. The central concept our performance explores is: conformity in society and ones identity. The theme is conveyed through expressionism and aspects of surrealism. The play is presented in a number of outlooks including a uniform society from an outer perspective as well as the individual yearning for difference to be accepted and celebrated. The performance arouses sentiments of spectator and uses non-realistic ideas to communicate morals in conjuncture to reality. The message intended is: society should not force people to be the same and realise that difference is what makes life interesting. It deems people the freedom to live their lives how they want. The performance identifies that even if societys ideology does not accept difference and change, in order to achieve change and cease societal expectations and, stereotypes immobilising human development, retaliation must occur. In the view that, one person can be the spark to a fire. The piece endeavours to evoke a journey of sentiments including: a robotic world where everything is rigid and monotonous, loneliness, frustration and suffocation. An emotional connection with the audience is created, allowing them to withdraw a time in their lives when they may have felt different and disregarded by others and absorb the message. The piece successfully adopts the conventions of expressionism and surrealism, portraying the non realistic concept of robots vs. human and dreams. In the opening scene, we view the sentient robots desire to push against the boundaries of socially acceptable behaviors and traditions in order to discover liberty and emotion. This is illustrated as the robot slows down amongst everyone and is surrounded by other robots pressurizing it to conform. Subsequently, within the molding scene, the artist distorts the creations to depict the inner, psychological attributes of her subjective world. The artist acts as representation of society and presents another perspective to the piece. Excursions into the robots subconscious mind portray human terror, haunting anxieties; nightmarish fears and anguish appear in the tempest scene. The duration of this scene exaggerates the emotions and emphasizes the confusion and re-occurring fears in the subconscious mind. In this scene, the fear and reaction towards change is explored. The robot recognizes that society is remorseless and the concept of change and those who are different are marginalized. This is represented by the chorus of people moving speedily in comparison to the slow robot.

Artaudss quote is reflected by the various theatrical techniques and elements of drama used in performance through the manipulation of sound and movement. The opening scene establishes a very uniform setting, which is presented by the use of rhythmic choral movement. In order to evoke a certain atmosphere and have a dramatic effect on the upcoming action this complemented by non diegetic music. The rigid and sharp movement of the robots visually shows the contrast between humans and robots. The use of black costumes and black masks amongst all characters is a physical representation of uniformity and denial of identity. In addition, the black masks are symbolic of evil, power, deception, loneliness and concealment of emotion. Movement played a vital role in conveying emotion and expression as we are forced to exaggerate movement, retain focus and pay attention to the movement of our faces. A significant amount of the performance is absent of dialogue which draws more attention to the movement and builds an atmosphere for when Andrew performs a soliloquy. The vocal expression of this soliloquy expresses the robots inner thoughts and emotions and the use of pauses presents a deep remorse. This is accompanied by psychological exploration which discloses the inner mechanism of the robots mind including thoughts, longings and vision. The performance also discloses the decisions of the characters which are either socially acceptable or exposing their intentions thus projecting what is upright or not. This can be seen in the moulding scene when characters make the decision to rebel. The Presence of Absence performed by the NSW schools ensemble was a performance combining the genres of both non realism and realism. The presentation was inspired by silent black and white film. The conventions of non realism was prevalent in the First scene the absence of dialogue and use dim lighting in the opening scene created a feeling of sadness and eeriness as the audience was curious to understand what made the man sitting on the seat. The costumes and hair styles of the performers establish an old fashioned theme and the fast tempo music. The sensation of this was very unusual for the young audience.