The Vir(tu)al Birds (BDA_NZ02)
     
This project addresses the many aspects of virtuality, producing intersections of the live body with the audio-visual in order to explore our relationship with the intangible, the unseen, the illusory, and the imagined. As birds do, the virtual world of televisual and internet broadcast defies borders and geographical boundaries, to bring in new information, dialogue, and ideas to catalyze societal change. Wars are fought in the media airwaves as much as on the ground, while birds carry dangerous viruses across our borders. Boundaries between virtual, airborne states and the corporeal, earthbound state have become carefully controlled, as the bodies of the bird, the plane, and the terrorist threaten to disrupt organised democracies, and contest carefully marked borders. In this conflict the hegemony of the virtual media holds essentially the same power that Aristophanes’ birds attain. It is a power that deposes the old gods, and provides the populace with a new sublime. In this project students have addressed the shifting boundaries between states (moving image and the live body) to examine the role that the media plays in defining our lives, our identities, and borders; infecting the impressionable human eye with dreams, simulacra, and fantasies that remain intangible and beyond reach.
 		  
 
 
 
Sam Trubridge, Marina  Davis, Hermione  Flynn, Meggan Frauenstein, Caitlin Le Harivel, Leanne  Stevenson,
New Zealand		  
Massey University & Toi Whakaari, NZ Drama School