Chamber Made Presents DIASPORA

Chamber Made presents the premiere of Diaspora, a digital dream where machines and technology enable the promise of utopia presented through the collision of audio, projection, illusion and lasers.

Diaspora is a visual symphony for machines, violin, voice, ondes musicales and theremin created by Robin Fox with a team of some of Australia's most admired music and sound innovators, including Tamara Saulwick, Erkki Veltheim, Madeleine Flynn and Georgina Darvidis.

Inspired by the concepts found in the first chapter of Australian author Greg Egan's legendary science fiction masterpiece of the same name, Diasporais an abstract reading of the birth of a digital life-form.

Fox explains that technology and software possibilities are already superhumanly organic, "Diaspora is a science fiction revelation which we are already experiencing."

"As we theorise and catastrophise about the perils of handing over control to an Artificial Intelligence - we often overlook the prospect that technology could not only save us, but could also be a beautiful moment in the evolution towards an ethereal and non-body consciousness," said Fox.

The majestic and futuristic Diaspora design will transform The SUBSTATION to house the extraordinary musicians tasked with sonifying the complex and multi-layered aspects of a digital life-form.

Featuring reimagined projection technologies developed by Fox along with video artist and system designer Nick Roux, Diaspora will illuminate hologram-like-illusions by bouncing images off Perspex surfaces to create virtual performers in the space.

Fox explains that some of the projections in Diaspora are inspired by an old theatrical illusion technique known as Pepper's ghost, where the reflection of an off-stage performer was lit and bounced on stage.

"In the19th century, the illusions appeared to be a ghost. However, 21st century audiences may interpret the illusion as a hologram. Our projections in Diaspora will allow us to present ideas around consciousness and the evolution of a potential new kind of life-form," said Fox.

As well as the projection and textual inspirations, Diaspora will echo aspects of the past to imagine a future through the extraordinary 'old school' sound and music effects using instruments like the theremin, ondes musicales and Moog synthesizer.

Chamber Made Artistic Director, Tamara Saulwick, explains that Diaspora continues the company's commitment to creating new works at the nexus of performance, sound and music, "We are elated to create this new work with one of Australia's most renowned audio-visual artists: Robin Fox alongside such a stellar team of collaborating artists."

Bookings festival.melbourne/2019/events/diaspora/

Information chambermade.org