Build Your Own Little Monster
The Age
Friday September 21, 2007
EMERGENCE
Synarcade, North Melbourne Arts House, corner Queensberry and Errol streets, North Melbourne, September 18. Until Sunday. Running time: 90 minutes www.buildyourownbeing.com FANCY becoming a parent, but want to avoid the slime, sleep deprivation and expense of the traditional method? Try Synarcade's Emergence, an interactive multimedia performance that presents audiences with a unique opportunity to build their ideal human. In the lab at the Department of Bio-logical Sciences, genetics has progressed to a level where not only physical characteristics, but personalities, can be manipulated. Presided over by the greenish, ovoid projection of the department head (played with Pythonesque absurdity by Richard Cartwright), the experiment involves the creation of a prototype being named Ram (Nick Curnow). As Ram's parents, the audience is presented with a series of choices about his development.The consequence of each decision is portrayed through a customised short film. These sequences, which employ a range of effects from claymation to digital graphics, are ingeniously constructed to form a visually engaging interactive narrative.Our votes (taken instantaneously via luminous headbands and some visual recognition software) were sometimes extremely close. But parents sometimes disagreed strongly about what was in the best interests of their child. We ended up with a creative, individualistic, critical creature with a complete inability to lie. To ameliorate its misery, or perhaps as a face-saving gesture, we also gave it a good sense of humour. I will be interested in watching its progress on the internet.Emergence is a fascinating show and delivers a genuine poignancy, inspired by a profound recognition that human virtues and failings are inextricably intertwined.
© 2007 The Age