Helen Thorington, Jesse Gilbert, Marek Walczak: ADRIFT

Artist(s):

• Helen Thorington
• Jesse Gilbert
• Marek Walczak

Title:

ADRIFT

Exhibition:

• SIGGRAPH 1998: Touchware

Medium:

Ongoing, Internet

Category:

• Animation & Video

Keywords:

• collaboration
• performance
• virtual environment

Artist Statement:

Adrift is an evolving performance work that is streamed live from multiple locations to audiences on the Internet and in distinct geographical locations.

A collaborative work by three artists (writer and composer Helen Thorington, composer Jesse Gilbert, and architect Marek Walczak), Adrift involves an interplay among three environments: text, sound, and VRML 3D, where borders are permeated, new relationships are developed, and the expressive power of the networked medium is made visible and audible.

The content focuses on a harbor, a city, and the human body. As the three artists and their computers pass information back and forth in real time, an interaction among the senses, and among the geographies, scales, and narratives represented in the work is created. The fluid perceptions and the multiple intersecting journeys they suggest lie at the heart of this networked performance.

Premiered at the Ars Electronica Festival in Linz, Austria in September 1997, Adrift has been performed monthly since, including a simultaneous performance in Vienna and Brooklyn. Future performances will include other artists, additional audience locations, and the extended possibilities of new programming and new perceptions.

Archives of earlier performances, including full performances and slide shows with sound, are available on the Web site (www.turbulence.org/Adrift).