Information
Jeffrey Shaw >
»Place - Urbanity«, 2001 - 2001
Co-Workers & Funding:
Application Software: Adolf MathiasPlatform, screen and Interface Engineering: Huib Nelissen
Computing Hardware Integration: Torsten Ziegler
Audio Design: Torsten Belschner
Technology
Installation Requirements / Space
ZKM_Kubus :: Sound Design: Torsten Belschner, Software: Adolf Mathias und Andreas Kiel, Hardware: Huib Nelissen
Descriptions & Essays
Melbourne is a notably multicultural city because of the size and diversity of its many immigrant communities. Melbourne also has the reputation of being the comedy capital of Australia. PLACE URBANITY presents fifteen fully panoramic video recordings of various urban locations in Melbourne that each identify the districts of a specific immigrant and/or ethnic community: Chinese, Macedonian, Greek, Italian, Vietnamese, Turkish, Russian, Jewish, Aboriginal, African, Serbian, Indian, Australian, Egyptian and Lebanese.
The installation allows the viewer to rotate a projected image within a fully surrounding 9m diameter projection screen. A virtual pscyho-geographic reconstruction of the Melbourne urban landscape presents the fifteen panoramic recordings within a series of architectonic cylinders on whose interior walls these videos are viewable. When exploring each of the panoramic scenes the visitor will find a comedian, hanging upside down, who when coming into view will tell a joke. Each comedian is a member of the particular ethnic community represented in their panorama surroundings, and their jokes reflect critically and humorously their distinctive identities within the Australian social and geographical context.
Literature
Exhibitions & Events
2002
Festival :