The cyborg figure in the sea weather is the result of an exceptionally extensive collaboration
Maija Vilkkumaa’s play Sea Weather features a cyborg character played by Kaisa Torkkeli, who has been designed, developed and manufactured by many departments and people. The character is only on stage for a few minutes, but still a huge amount of hours of work have been spent on creating it.
The design was based on director Aino Kivi’s wish that Cyborg would be retro sci-fi in the genre, i.e. a vision of the future of the 90s. How would a person living in the 90s have imagined a combination of a machine and a human? What kind of information technology would have been thought of on top of the cyborg then?
Costume designer Laura Dammert sketched and initiated the first version of the cyborg, which was then developed together with designers and employees from other departments. The original sketch featured a jacket suit with wires on its chest, some kind of robotic arm and eye, and a half-mask that would look like the robot’s frontal lobe.
An essential requirement was that Torkkeli had to be able to dance in a cyborg costume. That’s why the jacket suit made by seamstress Anni Laanti was made of stretchy, snake-patterned lycra. “Clothes are wonderful when they are stretchy. For once, the clothes don’t bother me at all!” rejoices Torkkel.
In other respects, the outfit has had plenty for the actor to practice and take into account. A cyborg is a jealous and easily hurt person by nature, who cannot handle the burden of emotions. The unpleasant sensations cause light to light up in the cyborg’s chest and smoke to rise from the ears.
Because of the smoke, Torkkel has to carry a backpack on his back, inside which lighting master Vesa Ellilä has packed all the necessary electronics. Laanti made a backpack the size of Ellilä’s wishes from thick technical fabric and covered it with hologram lycra, which is suitably futuristic in material. The backpack can hold a smoke machine, a small battery, a receiver that receives signals from the light table, and small dimmers that control LED light sources.
“When you have a lump on your back, you have to be careful not to fall to the ground so that your backpack or back breaks,” says Torkkel. “At first, everything is annoying, but the more often you have to live, the less important it becomes.”
Prop designer Jenny Villikka made a collar for the cyborg from plastazote, which is a material similar to a camping mattress. Villikka surface-treated the collar and cast tracks on it, for which he
planted wires. Finally, lighting master Ellilä added an RGY (Red, Green, Yellow) LED panel to the collar, which acts as an energy level and mood meter for the cyborg.
In addition to the collar, Villikka and Ellilä worked closely together to make the mask. “This has been an exceptionally extensive collaboration. Perhaps people here have woken up to the fact that it is good to keep in touch more between the departments, as the work is still related to each other,” Villikka ponders. “This project has had a good buzz in all directions, and the gang has received ideas from each other,” Ellilä adds.
For the mask, a death mask was taken from Torkkeli, on top of which Villikka cast a new layer of heated plastic. To it, he attached various parts from plastic strips, such as wires and tracks inside the machines. In addition, printed circuit boards were attached to the mask. Ellilä, on the other hand, designed a green light eye for the mask, inspired by the Terminator 2 movie.
Ellilä was also responsible for the cyborg’s laser glove. Costume designer Dammert had hoped for a robotic arm, but the original plan did not have lights. “I didn’t even know that could be possible,” Dammert says.
Torkkel can turn the glove’s laser lights on and off with his thumb, while the cyborg’s other technology, i.e. the smoke machine, eye and energy meter, can be controlled wirelessly from the light table. “The glove could have been connected to the lighting system, but it would have been best to leave Kaisa with some of her own decision-making power. And most importantly, if the wireless system failed, the cyborg would not be completely ‘lifeless’,” Ellilä says.
“The always exciting aspect is that many artists feel that their expression is disturbed if they are worn with wireless microphones or other electronics. I thought that Kaisa could have humour and spark, and that she would agree to wear the outfit and make it a continuation of her own performance,” Ellilä continues.
When the rehearsals came and Torkkel got to wear all the cyborg outfits at the same time for the first time, the whole outfit felt tiring and hot. The backpack pressed on my back and my hand got tired. Jumping off the rotating stage was scary when you only had one eye and it was dark on the stage. I forgot the text when I had to focus on other things. “After a couple of hours, I said that I was already quite used to this,” Torkkel says.
The cyborg had changed from a plan to a real one.
