16 Nov 2006
Experimenta, Australia's media arts powerhouse, presents an exhibition of innovative interactive media and video artworks by some of Australia's leading contemporary artists. The artists combine technology and creativity to produce powerful, memorable and enjoyable experiences. The unprecedented scale and calibre of the works makes this tour to the UK a world first.
Video installation
Shaun Gladwell (Australia, 2005)
Experimenta Commission
Pataphysical Man re-presents the dynamics of a break dancer in the tradition of Da Vinci's Vitruvian man and Le Corbusier's modular man. In this way, the absurdist logic of 'pataphysics' is juxtaposed with the symmetry and harmony of Da Vinci and Le Corbusier.
Interactive video installation
Narinda Reeders & David MacLeod (Australia, 2005)
Experimenta Commission
As you approach this photographic image, the figures are suddenly startled by your presence and flee, leaving an empty landscape devoid of life but haunted by the absence of the characters. As the viewer moves away, the figures reappear, emerging from their hiding places to reposition themselves in their original arrangement.
Interactive video installation
Isobel Knowles & Van Sowerwine (Australia, 2003)
Experimenta Commission
In this interactive installation, the user is responsible for creating playmates for eight-year old Charlotte in her virtual bedroom. A teddy bear functions as an interface between the video projection and user. Constructing an environment that appears nurturing yet is ultimately controlling and lonely, Expecting blends the real and the virtual to examine contemporary isolation and detachment.
Interactive video installation
Tan Teck Weng (Australia/Malaysia, 2002)
When the user picks up a box on a plinth, the furniture on the screen in front begins to move. Depending on the actions of the user, it can slowly creep across the room, or dance about, violently crashing into walls. In Panopticon, the viewer can take pleasure in their control of this Lilliputian space, but only with the knowledge that a surveillance camera is probably over their shoulder.
Interactive sculpture
Stephen Barrass, Linda Davy & Kerry Richens (Australia, 2003)
Zizi is an affectionate couch that supports you not only physically but emotionally. Zizi growls when sat on, purrs when touched and gets particularly aroused if you stroke her long fur, emitting soft groans of delight.
Interactive video installation
Stephen Barrass (Australia, 1999-2002)
Cluttered from floor to ceiling with bric-a-brac, Op Shop is a virtual environment that is transformed by sound. A high-pitched wail can shatter glass, or by singing a low note, the user can smash a table, and clapping their hands can rattle many objects at once.
Video installation
Daniel Crooks (Australia, 2005)
Experimenta Commission
In Train No.7, Crooks creates a world in which our stable sense of gravity and time is distorted. We see objects and people moving through time and space as though travelling through atmospheres of different viscosity, simultaneously through past, present and future.
Video installation
Marcus Lyall (Australia, 2003)
This series of video portraits depicts strange amorphous shapes moving towards a person on screen. Shot on a high-speed digital camera normally used to film mine detonations and military tests, one second of real time becomes 40 seconds of screen time. In this elongated moment, we see the transition from artificial to natural, the subject's formal pose involuntarily changing in reaction to the food hurtling towards them.