PRESS RELEASE
HOSTS
An Interactive Cinema work for Bath Abbey
Supported by Bath Film Festival 2005
Dates: Bath Abbey Church 9th-27th February 2006
Monday-Saturday 10am-6.00pm
Description
HOSTS is an ambitious project inspired by the motif of Jacob's Ladder
on the West front of Bath Abbey. Bristol-based media artist Martin
Rieser will hang five giant screens at strategic points of the Abbey
space. Wearing a special ultra-sound badge and wireless earphones,
the participant in HOSTS triggers the presence of a variety of
evanescent projected video characters. As the participant approaches a
screen, these individual characters or messengers appear to move
forwards from a deep space and come into focus. If the participant
then moves on, the characters too pass onwards from screen to screen,
keeping pace with them. In this way, once a participant has entered
the installation they become part of the story space. By standing in
front of a screen they will eventually be paired with and addressed
directly through a series of aphorisms by their individual messenger.
Concept
HOSTS combines poetry performance, animation and cinema in a unique
blend. The words of the spoken and animated aphorisms are apparently
those of humans, fraught with ambiguity and misunderstanding. Perverse
and fragile, the aphorisms hover between the portentous and the
mundane, inflected over and over into different meanings by the
messengers. We are captured by the messengers and hurled into their
drama in the same way that an unwilling passenger in a train can be
given someone's life story. This is not always a comfortable
experience. HOSTS is intended as a spiritually enhancing experience
for a broad audience, not usually drawn to a media art gallery.
HOSTS is a major multidisciplinary exercise involving film-makers,
animators, programmers, electronic engineers, lighting /cameramen,
professional actors, and social scientists. The sensor developments
have already been made in partnership with Bath University's Wearables
Group. Support has been given to the project by Bath Spa University
under their research enhancement funding, since this project lines up
with the work of the CTOL research group (Critical Topologies of
Landscape) and with an AHRB Study award. Bath Abbey and The Bath Film
Festival are also supporting the Project.
HOSTS represents a step-change in the way cinema can be made
interactive for a mobile audience. It combines the latest technology
with innovative creative ideas.
A disk of supporting visual material (Jpegs and QuickTime) is
available on CD by request
Contact Details: Martin Rieser
Tel: 0117 9731041 Mob: 09766766429
e-mail: [email protected]
Websites: www.martinrieser.com/Hosts.htm www.sof.org.uk
–
Martin Rieser
Professor of Digital Arts
Bath Spa University
Sion Hill, Lansdown
Bath BA1 5AF
0044[0]1225 875875
http://www.mobileaudience.blogspot.com
http://www.martinrieser.com
http://www.sof.org.uk
20 Elliston Road
Redland
Bristol BS6 6QE UK
Tel:0044[0]1179731041
Hosts : a major digital art event in Bath Abbey
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Type: discussion