Performance, sound, video, web
Messages have been sent into space since the 1970s, from episodes of I Love Lucy to complex mathematical equations. As yet, nothing has been heard back. No wonder; we have approached our message-sending like a job interview, presenting a well adjusted, thriving Earth, overflowing with perky, attractive genius.
It’s time for some honesty. The fastest way to make contact with others is to expose something about ourselves, our own frailty and vulnerability. We’re a beautiful yet destructive stressed-out plague of people destroying our habitat who feel in so many ways personally, culturally, and geographically alone.
Yelling at Stars is Australia’s first interstellar message to be transmitted deep into outer space. The project occurs in two stages; first, log on to www.yellingatstars.com to be taken on a behind-the-scenes tour of the science and art of inter-stellar messaging, register your attendance and tell us what you would yell to the deep.
The one-off performance event will take place at the Sidney Myer Music Bowl on the closing night of the 2008 Next Wave Festival. It will be recorded, filmed and streamed directly onto the web. Deep Space Communications Network in Florida, USA, will then convert this broadcast into radio waves and transmit it light-years into outer space.
Yelling at Stars is a message that uses humour, pathos and the occasional cover song to give a personal account of humanity’s struggle to deal with its own sense of isolation.
With an introduction by Anton Enus, SBS World News Australia presenter and featuring the new song Computer Love by TZU.
Artist/s:
Willoh S. Weiland (Project Director/Writer/Performer), Andrew Fraser (Video and Web Design), Billow & Wry (Art Design), David Young (Mentor), Dr. Christopher Fluke (Astronomy Consultant), Nicky Forster (Research Writer/Audio Documentary), Pip Norman (Sound Composer/ Designer), Richard Vabre (Production Manager/Lightning Designer), Roger Alsop (Mentor/Project Development/Interactive Programming), Georgina Read (Visual Artist)
Hanna Parssinen (Ice Sculptor).
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About the artist/s:
Willoh S. Weiland (Project Director/ Writer/Performer) (Grad. Dip. Performace Making,VCA, 2004) has written and directed various plays including Bruises (2007), Lens (2005), 2Traverse (2003), and The Memory Priest (2004).
Her writing has been part of the Big West Festival, the Emerging Writers’ Festival, the Melbourne Fringe, This Is Not Art Festival and the Noise Festival. Most recently Willoh wrote Antidote for the Melbourne Fringe (Highly Commended Best Performance); Underwhere, a site-specific work in Hobart; and made a pie off with spat+loogie. She is currently undertaking a mentorship with Jenny Kemp on her new work Kitten and is working with puppetry/media company Blood Policy.
Andrew Fraser (Video and Web Designer) is a freelance web designer, director of photography and entrepreneur in digital media enterprises.
Pip Norman (Sound Composer/Designer), AKA Countbounce, makes beats and writes/produces for TZU, Urthboy, The Commas, Mantra, Equills, Elf Transporter, Nat Dunn and many others.
Nicky Forster (Researcher/Writer/Field Recorder) (BA Hons) trained in human geography and qualitative research at Monash and Melbourne Universities, and more recently studied sound production at Swinburne University.
She has conducted qualitative research as a geographer in the non-profit sector both here and overseas investigating stories about people, place, activism, development and ecology. She currently works in the Cultural Programs section at the Manningham City Council. Nicky recently completed her first permanent sound installation in Wombat Bend Playspace, Templestowe, and with any luck will further combine her interests in field recording, narrative, geopolitical issues and the arts.
Yelling at Stars is her debut collaborative art project.
Richard Vabre (Production Manager/Lightning Designer). Malthouse Theatre: Autobiography of Red, Apples and Ladders, A Quarrelling Pair, A View of Concrete, The Black Swan of Trespass, Sleeping Beauty, The Eisteddfod.
Here Productions: Hospital of the Lost Coin/Vanishing Box, The True Adventures of a Soul Lost at Sea, Asylum. Stuck Pigs Squealing: The Black Swan of Tresspass, The Eisteddfod, Lally Katz and the Terrible Mysteries of the Volcano.
Melbourne Workers Theatre: Diatribe, The Call. Rawcus Theatre: Sideshow, Not Yet Dead, Collisions (MIAF 05), Hunger (MIAF 07).
Aphids: Schallmachine 06. (MIAF 06), Music at Mount Egerton, Val Camonica (TILT ’07). Awards: Green Room Award Association’s John Truscott Prize for Excellence in Design (2004). Green Room Award Association award for Outstanding Lighting Design in a Fringe or Independent production 2005 (Smashed, Test Pattern, The Black Swan of Trespass), Fringe Festival Awards: Excellence in Lighting Design (1998 & 2000).
Roger Alsop (Mentor/Project Development/Interactive Programming) lectures in Sound Design at the Victorian College of the Arts and works freelance as a sound designer and composer. He holds Master of Arts (La Trobe University), Graduate Diploma of Music Technology (La Trobe University), Bachelor of Arts, Music and Drama (La Trobe University) and has studied conducting and film composition, under Robert Rosen at the VCA, and Paul Schutze at the AFTRS, respectively.
His recent performance works include: The Yellow Wallpaper at the Malthouse Theatre; The Three Interiors of Lola Strong at fortyfivedownstairs; Rice Paddies and Remembrance of Things Past at MIFA; Scenes of the Future from the Past at NYID; Springtime at the Griffin Theatre; Paradise and Krapp’s Last Tape at La Mama; and various works at the Big West Festival.
[ Additional information ]
More information:
Partnered by Full Tilt at the Arts Centre.
This project was developed through Next Wave Kickstart and SPARK, the Australia Council’s national mentoring program for young artists, managed by Youth Arts Queensland.
Supported by Aphids Residencies and Mentoring Scheme established with the support of the Sidney Myer Fund.
[ Project website: www.yellingatstars.com ]
