EVP Duet: Handsome Lake versus Alfred Jarry"

Jackson 2bears & Ted Hiebert

EVP Duet: Handsome Lake versus Alfred Jarry is a paranormal performance in which artists Jackson 2bears and Ted Hiebert will channel the spirits of Handsome Lake and Alfred Jarry in order to generate real-time soundscapes in the gallery. The project combines a study of electronic voice phenomenon (EVP) with channelling and séance techniques in order bring to the performative stage the ghosts of Handsome Lake and Alfred Jarry, two thinkers who had much to say about the boundaries of human knowledge and interaction.

Place: Open Space → more info
Dates: Thursday, 27 October, Starting at 21:00

Take Me

Liz Solo

A mad scientist has devoted her career to the pursuit of ultimate human happiness. She pitches a new experimental therapy to audience members and invites them to participate in a therapy session. Throughout the therapy process participants will look for ways to interact with the virtual interfaces and invent methods for bridging the divides between environments. Using large-scale projection, live streaming, the power of suggestion and live audio, Take Me merges multiple environments into one jubilant celebration.

Place: Open Space → more info
Dates: Saturday, 29 October, Starting at 20:00

Audio Space

David Cecchetto & William Brent

Exurbia is a digital sound-editing program where users compose individual sound-works from a shared collection of sound samples. Participants use Exurbia’s features without the benefit of textual or visual avatars. The program explores the extent to which our conventional conceptions of online communities are visually constructed.

Cecchetto will be on hand to conduct an Exurbia workshop and performance as part of the OFF LABEL festival that brings together an international group of artists and intellectuals to explore health, spirituality and the effects of technology in a digitally mediated world.

Place: Open Space → more info
Dates: Tuesday, 1 November, Starting at 16:00

4-Wall – Reality Dealing in Blue Mars

Jeremy Owen Turner (CAN)

4-Wall is a conceptual drug that an avatar dealer buys/sells in Blue Mars Lite. BML uses Google Streetview as its virtual environment.For about an hour, the artist will perform from a remote location as the avatar drug-dealer and will loiter around virtual representations of Open Space’s immediate neighbourhood. Interacting with gallery viewers through a screen and an in-world representation of Open Space, the dealer promises a drug that breaks the “fourth wall” between reality and fiction. Further, the dealer will be able to hear the voices of the gallery-goers inside the “real” gallery space and respond to them as if he is hearing voices in his head. Visitors can also log into Blue Mars Lite and buy/sell 4-Wall with the dealer in the virtual world. If people doubt that the 4-Wall drug works, the dealer will coax the viewers to walk outside of the gallery to see the avatar in real-life. Of course, the avatar will try and run out of the virtual neighbourhood as soon as this happens. The virtual part of the performance would appear on a regular computer projection and/or a large monitor screen.

Place: Open Space → more info
Dates: Friday, 28 October, Starting at 11:30