Factoid for the day: John Howard and Arnold Schwarzenegger have the same eyebrow stylist. Easy enough to imagine Arnie pumping iron at Parliament House, butt much harder to swallow Johnnie on the back of a harley in leather with a sawn off shotgun and cables sticking out of his neck.
Only one of them though may be sending citizens off to kill soon though. Trying figure out why Australia might go to war inevitably leads one through media mazes, where the battle for your perception of events and other countries is fiercely contested. Timely then, is the dLux presentation of ‘Data Terra’, a series of events exploring our very own virtual reality minefields, the goopy media saturation of 2002.
Desert Rain
First tank off the rank is a very large scale interactive piece by Blast Theory(UK) that 6 people spend half an hour inside. Trying to blur the real and the fictional, Desert Rain sees participants a mission in a virtual world – projected onto screens of falling water. Each member explores motels, deserts and underground bunkers, communicating with each other within the virtual world and has 30 minutes to find their target. Each target has had their life changed by the Gulf War in some way and talk about their relationship to the events, their proximity to them and how ‘real’ it felt. Check the impressive screenshots online and book your ticket.
$6 / 11, Nov 15 -22 every half an hour between???
At Artspace, 43 – 51 Cowper Wharf Rd, Woolloomooloo Cost:
Bookings essential: the piece is structured as an interactive game for six players.
Groups of six get one ticket free – call 02 9380 4255, leave contact details.
The All Star Data Mappers ~ curated by John Tonkin
Surveillance these days of course, is shifting to the monitoring of our ‘data-bodies’, the traces of our electronic movements and money flows. This exhibition pulls together some of the best electronic artists dissecting the politics of ‘data mapping’, each providing innovative and provocative ways of visualising and interacting with ‘data maps’. Works featured include Benjamin Fry’s genomic piece, Schoener Wissen’s graphical browser for surfing the Gnutella network, Golan Levin’s make-your-own-axis game, and Josh On’s theyrule.net which shows the massively interlinked corporate boardrooms for the top 100 corporations.
Opening at Artspace, 6pm, Nov 28,
Or catch it from : Nov 29 – Dec 7 (Mon – Sat 11am – 6pm)
Data Conspiracy
Cut N pastry: ‘An informal evening of data swapping with dr Martin Ng, dr Ann Finnegan + Kate Richards A drinking date, a live experiment will place audience and speakers together in an intimate setting. The art of conversation combined with a little tapas and the divulging of sets of information [data], will be served. Experience a deep data debate in order to digest the mediation of information across technological, cultural and physical terrain.’
Mon 2nd Dec 2002 6 – 9 pm $15
bookings essential, call Dlux 9380 4255
Interalia
All the high-falootin real-to-virtual theorising gets properly mashed at the Data Terra closing party; an audio visual performative environment with 3 stages, 3 – 5 projectors, a multi -channel surround sound system, a stack of audiovisual performers and performance/ live artists. Byo Arnold Schwarzenegger & John Howard masks.
9pm till late, Sat Dec 7, $5.
The Chocolate Factory, Level 2, 144 Cleveland St, Chippendale