Astrea is thrilled to announce the upcoming world premier exhibition of “Gondwana” by revolutionary XR artists Ben Joseph Andrews and Emma Roberts at Bocs, Wales Millennium Centre’s space for extended reality and immersive experiences. This groundbreaking Virtual and Mixed Reality installation offers visitors a mesmerizing journey through time and nature, pushing the boundaries of traditional art experiences. Multiple visitors at the same time can enter inside the virtual rainforest to collectively participate in the revitalization of one of the most important natural ecosystems of climate protection: The North-Eastern Australian Daintree Rainforest.
Gondwana brings us together inside the world’s oldest tropical rainforest through a combination of multi-channel projection, quadraphonic sound, and dynamic real-time lighting directly connected to the virtual forest. Visitors are transported into a hand-drawn realization of this crucial environment, whereby their presence has a direct impact on the world around them. Gondwana is a striking example of advanced technology adapted for artistic cultural experiences that challenge the status quo and inspire eco-optimism and agency, a necessary outlook for the current state of affairs.
In researching this project, the artist duo spent 5 months living off-grid in the Daintree.
Learning from Kuku Yalanji elders and scientists to understand this very special place, we experienced first-hand the immeasurable complexity, interconnectedness and sentience of this vast and ancient ecosystem. To be entangled within the dynamic flux of the Daintree’s living, breathing nature is to put the human perspective into proportionate scale. Here, we understood how small we really are: organisms floating inside the lungs of something infinitely larger. Time collapses in on itself, its cycles moving a few rings wider than normal.
We want audiences from around the world to become entranced by the Daintree, to come together to hear the call-and-response of the Wompoo dove, to experience the incredible power of a wet season deluge, to understand how the rhythms of the cicadas change as the weather does. But we also want audiences to feel the difference of the rainforest when the Wompoo doves are no longer sounding, when the rainfall is no longer frequent, when the light in the forest changes as the canopy recedes. The speculative, procedurally degenerative nature of Gondwana acknowledges that we do not know exactly which way things might unfold—data changes, models are updated. But one thing is for sure: if we do not act, and act with urgency, we stand to lose something magical, something ancient, something irreplaceable.”
Ben Joseph Andrews
From July 3rd to August 13th, Wales Millennium Centre’s Bocs will host this remarkable exhibition in the heart of Cardiff.
It’s been a real honour to work with Emma and Ben alongside the Astrea team to realise Gondwana as part of our official selection of the Bocs 2024 programme. We’re thrilled to be exhibiting Gondwana as a multi platform, full scale experience. This international premiere uses VR, projection and streaming to place audiences in the heart of the Daintree rainforest and explores the urgency around climate change. This epic installation will captivate Welsh audiences, enabling a ‘coming together’ through the cerebral, communal experience of saving the virtual Daintree from the impacts of climate change.
David Massey, lead curator of Bocs
With its innovative approach, Bocs is the first space of its kind in a Welsh arts centre and serves as a leading platform for showcasing fully immersive experiences in different formats
Over the course of each exhibition day, visitors witness the gradual decline of the lush environment, aligning with climate data projections from 1990 to 2090. By actively engaging with the biodiverse world and spending more time in the forest, audiences can help build the environment’s resilience and take ownership over the state of the forest.
For more information on the exhibition:
https://www.wmc.org.uk/en/whats-on/2023/gondwana
