Drift

What do we hold onto when facing an uncertain future?

Drift is a live installation inviting visitors to board a nestlike vessel amid a flotilla of similar twinkling crafts. Floating in this twilight place, each vessel – a childs’ flotation lilo and a nest of shredded paper – offers a precarious and tentative refuge for an individual to embark on a personal journey. Methodically, over time, each occupant is attended to by Vulcan and finally tucked and sealed in their pod with a silver mylar blanket. The performance explores the fine lines between security and fragility and presents a place for contemplation whether participating or watching quietly from the edges. The multiple soundscapes, composed by Ashley Scott, impart a calm disquiet mirroring the fine balance between comfort and unease.

Drift considers what it means to witness the intimate moments of tenderness that might sustain us, in an effort to find a common place of understanding. On a deeper level it asks us to reflect on the motivation and decision to take a difficult and treacherous journey and why some of us might jump into the abyss to survive.

Underscoring the action Julie takes a photo of each inhabitant. Rather than an intrusive mandatory act, it is a gesture accounting for each persons passage. The boarding time of each inhabitant and their photo is uploaded to a live twitter feed @driftcast  in turn augmenting  Driftcast an image feed incorporating the individual into a larger collective picture grid. This in itself is an ambiguous artifact.

View the Driftcast image feed HERE

twitter: @driftcast

Performer, devisor, installation design: Julie Vulcan

Live mix, Sound designer, composer, installation technical: Ashley Scott

“I think this is testament to how Vulcan as a performer and artist can hold a space, elevating and deepening it into a profound experience: sensorially, politically and, dare I say, spiritually.”

Inner Bodies on the Outer – Kathryn Kelly Realtime 121

2014 Arts House Melbourne and Metro Arts Brisbane Australia

This project was assisted by the Australian Government through the Australia Council for the Arts, its arts funding and advisory body. Drift was presented in partnership with Arts House Festival of Live Art and Metro Arts 2014

Some of the ideas for Drift were originally seeded during research development at the 2012 Adhocracy lab, Vitalstatistix, Adelaide.