.
 
 
<-- B a c k   t o   i n d e x . h t m l
2004
Matariki: Night Cries
(Shockwave 3D)


Matariki: Night Cries
 
Synopsis

Born from a year when conversation and sensibleness seemed clouded (clouted) by noise, Matariki deliberates on current affairs using the dubiously relevant technology of 3D as its thinking. The cries in NZ arose around the time of the Maori New Year 2004, Matariki - a constellation that was noticeably absent in Auckland’s night skies when it rose in May from the light pollution of the city that dimmed it out.

Signatures used on the document of the Treaty of Waitangi were traced in 3D to form a static orbit around shapes of language that form naïve blocks of discourse. Both text and signs are navigable through the metaphor of a camera on a leash.

Central to the arrangement in the space is the fuzzy text-like rain clouds. From certain angles the words are readable, but no one-vantage point yields full visibility. Further, the 3D text is generated from user input that can be reassigned at any time, but is mistranslated into pidgin-Maori within the system. What is written and understood is misunderstood and becomes erroneous and naïve: a cultural wringer where no information can be considered informative.

Polemics of the virus inform the work. Fuzzy-intelligent systems, crusty keyboards, AI and old DOS-like command prompts - a sensation of old meets new that becomes a monument to the failed scripting language VRML.

/

Project Images

/

View Work

Work is currently being judged as part of the Vodafone Digital Art Awards, and because of this will be made viewable sometime after the exhibition in March 2005.