Rock Stars (incorporating Bubbles on Mars) 03:33

Adelaide Festival Centre Moving Image Program 2019

Screening Artists: Video Art + Digital Media December: Sarah Jane Pell & David G. Barnes

Rock Stars, 2019 megascreen adaptation of the 6K Mars Desert Research Station Crew MDRS188 performance, Adelaide Festival Centre, Moving Image Program, AU 1-31 Dec 2019.

Part One: “Rock Stars” is part of a suite of immersive visualization experiences featuring choreographed extra-vehicular activities (EVAs) led by Crew 188 Artist-in-residence during spacewalk simulations at the Mars Desert Research Station (MDRS) in 2018. It shows the crew dressed in red flights suits and protective astronaut bubble-shaped helmets walking across an ancient dried up riverbed of the Utah desert. The scale makes them look at once like giant soldier ants, and then tiny figures in a dinosaur’s backyard. They are seen picking up black boulders and stones, shifting them across the landscape to create land-art patterns. The 360-degree footage is mirrored and, like the trickery of desert mirages, the crew’s shadows and forms, move across the landscape in kaleidoscopic geometries. Will future Mars crews create patterns in the landscape, and monoliths like our ancestors? Will the spark of inspiration for cultural and site-specific installations drive such labour and shape our new worlds?

Part Two: "Bubbles on Mars" is a playful juxtoposition of the serious labour and utility of conventional extra-vehicular activity (EVA). The Analogue Astronauts try to understand the wind dancing through the ancient rock formations by holding up bubbler wands. Importantly, will their play and performance lead to innovation, invention and discovery, or support the crew in inspirational, collective and creative ways? Try chasing the bubbles across the Adelaide Festival Centre outdoor Mega Screens.

Mock-up of a custom-edit of RockStars for screening on the Adelaide Festival Centre - North Screen, Moving Image Program, 1-31 Dec 2019.

Mock-up of a custom-edit of Bubbles on Mars for screening on the Adelaide Festival Centre - South Screen, Moving Image Program, 1-31 Dec 2019.

Staring: JULIA DEMARINES, ZAC TROLLY, SARAH JANE PELL, RYAN KOBRICK. On location MARS DESERT RESEARCH STATION, MDRS Crew 188, Southern Utah US 2018. Post Production: DAVID. G. BARNES, DANIEL WAGHORN, SARAH JANE PELL. Writer/Director/Producer: SARAH JANE PELL.

This project is part of the Performing Astronautics project assisted by the Australian Government through the Australia Council, its arts funding and advisory body.

This work was co-produced by Monash University with support from the Monash Immersive Visualisation Platform during an artist residency 2018-2019. It premiered at the Cineglobe Festival, CERN Switzerland 2018 (in 180 Dome format); Life at the Edges Exhibition, Science Gallery Dublin, UK 2018 (in 360VR); SouthStart, Adelaide AU 2018 (as 2D-projection mapping inside the Adelaide Town Hall); and Moving Image Festival Adelaide Festival Centre (Mega Screen architectural wrapping), Adelaide AU 2019.

⇐ Meet MDRS Crew 188 ⇐ Return to Exhibitions ⇐ Check out MIVP Residency Projects