For the past month Virtuo has been busy working on various creative works/installations for Project CONNECT, a side-event of We Can Create (New Zealand’s biggest annual creative industries event), produced by BigVOICE. Project CONNECT is a multi-platform modern art exhibition, combining media and digital art with traditional art forms, and a celebration of the magic that happens when individuals co-create an authentic, collaborative voice.
We’ve enjoyed working with well over a dozen Project CONNECT participants and collaborating closely with BigVOICE, Transmedia NZ, Wireframe and MINA, and are looking forward to the launch event this Saturday, 27 August from 6pm at the IRONBANK Building, 150 Karangahape Road, Auckland.
Here is an overview of the projects we’ve been involved in creating for this event:
‘Bureau du chat’ (Virtuo)
This installation playfully investigates the boundaries of interpersonal/public conversation and explores performative communication in a space that is both public and private, intimate and open, traditional and modern.
In a glass-walled room in the corner of the exhibition space (in the ultra-modern Ironbankbuilding) a hybrid office/waiting room/parlour juxtaposes the baroque furnishings of a by-gone era with the latest communications technologies.
Visitors are invited to enter the room, sit down at the desk and start a conversation via Skype or Chat Roulette, or to take a seat on the couch and to watch and wait for their turn.
While engaging in private conversations in a virtual realm, participants are also publicly exposed to voyeurs, a situation that offers the potential to create new connections by drawing spectators into conversations.
LinkedIn Network Projection (Virtuo)
This installation explores the limits of connection through social networking. Here Project CONNECT is represented as an individual with a working history, personal recommendations and a growing list of connections on the professional networking site, LinkedIn.
The projected map shows a graphic visualisation of the connections within the Project CONNECT network. See/join Project CONNECT’s network at http://nz.linkedin.com/in/projectconnect2011
QR Code Game (Transmedia NZ in collaboration with Virtuo and Wireframe)
A game that challenges players to solve puzzles and make new connections as they explore the exhibition space. Using a smart phone with a QR code reader installed, players must find QR codes placed throughout the Project CONNECT exhibition on a quest to find the ultimate connection. We recommend the i-nigma Reader, which you can download here.
Documentary Challenge ( Transmedia NZ and MINA with support from Virtuo)
A challenge to create a mini-documentary based on the Project CONNECT launch event. Participants are encouraged to push the boundaries of documentary and to present an original perspective on the event, to be submitted by midday Monday 29 August.
For participants who would like to use their mobile phones to record the event MINA (Mobile Innovation Network Aotearoa) is running a workshop prior to the event and providing support for postproduction of the mobile-mentaries.