Straight to the ‘Art
by Olivia Crang & Jarrod Factor
An X:MACHINE Production
Straight to the 'Art is a hands-on, one-of-a-kind public art project, where YOU change what you see.
In one of the first ever projects to make use of Federation Square’s Big Screen interactive capabilities, Straight to the ‘Art presents Circi Unit 1.0: an onscreen interactive fem-bot, that responds to your SMS messages.
Audiences are invited to text their daily reflections, secrets, thoughts, feelings and messages to Circi Unit 1.0. The cyborg reacts to each message with a range of pre-programmed emotions. Over the two hours Circi Unit 1.0 is on the Big Screen, these messages will collate, building up a complex insight into the collective minds and moods of Melbourne.
Straight to the ‘Art
5:30pm to 7:30pm every Thursday, through November
An interactive work on the Big Screen at Federation Square
First screening Thursday 5 November
Visit Fed Square and SMS 0413 333 021 to interact
Also streamed online at www.straighttotheart.com
OLIVIA CRANG and JARROD FACTOR met during their studies at The University of Melbourne’s School of Creative Arts. Since then they have collaborated on several projects, including Serial Blogger and We Are What We Want for X:MACHINE as well as The Meaning of Moorabbin for NYID. They are currently developing with the rest of the X:MACHINE team on the company's next show Court.
OLIVIA CRANG is the Artistic Director of X:MACHINE, an ensemble of artists who collaborate on cross art-form performance projects. Her work is influenced and shaped by her experience of theatre in Japan (2005), and an interest in the digital and visual arts. Olivia has a Graduate Diploma in Animateuring (2004) and a Bachelor of Creative Arts (Honours) (2003) from the Victorian College of the Arts. Her performance training background focuses on physical theatre and includes work in the Grotowski Method, Viewpoints, Suzuki, Butoh, Body Weather and Noguchi-Taiso. Olivia has trained and performed with various companies in Japan, Europe and Australia including Gekidan Kaitaisha, Zen Zen Zo, Dairakudakan and IRRA Theatre. Olivia has studied acting at the National Theatre (2003) and attended IUGTE's 'International Performers Village' in Latvia (2008).
Recent theatre credits include work as an assistant director on Not Yet It’s Difficult’s apoliticaldance (2006), and as a production assistant on The Meaning of Moorabin (2008). In 2008 Olivia traveled to Serbia to perform in Mirage_Inter, a new work developed online by a collaborative of International Artists, facilitated by Serbian collective Doplgenger. Olivia also performed in the Store Room Theatre's development of Bare Life, a new work created in the virtual world of Second Life.
As the Artistic Director of X:MACHINE Olivia has collaborated on the creation of several projects including Serial Blogger (Next Wave Festival 2008) and Senseless (Melbourne Fringe Festival 2007) nominated for 2 Green Room Awards, as well as performed in the companies online performance installation We Are What We Want (2008). Olivia Crang and X:MACHINE have an ongoing mentorship with NYID and the Artistic Director, David Pledger. Olivia also facilitates regular performance training laboratories for X:MACHINE collaborators, and teaches drama around Melbourne.
JARROD FACTOR is a graduate of Victorian College of the Arts: School of Film, and Creative Arts at the University of Melbourne - a director, editor, sound designer and composer. He was one of the 10 shortlisted filmmakers for the 2007 Qantas Spirit of Youth Awards.
With X:MACHINE he was part of the core collaborative team on Serial Blogger (Next Wave Festival 2008) as video artist for the performance installation, and filmmaker for the online component. He was also the video artist for We Are What We Want, an online performance installation at Loop bar.
Other theatre credits include various contributions as video artist to the Not Yet It’s Diffcult projects The Meaning of Moorabbin (2008) and Running Man (2008). In 2007 he was audio-visual designer and original music composer for The Adult Youth of Today’s Luxury Item at the MeatMarket. Music originally composed for Luxury Item was also used for the online component of Serial Blogger.
As a filmmaker, Jarrod’s works have screened in major Australian and International film festivals. Aside from writing, directing and editing them, his films also feature his work as title designer, sound designer and composer. Jarrod’s music for his most recent short film Insignia won Jarrod a Gold Medal for Excellence at Park City Film Festival, USA .
In 2007 Jarrod won Best Sound Design for Lily Coates’ The Cat and Claudia at St Kilda Film Festival. He has just completed the sound design and original music score for Juliet Porter’s Film Victoria film “Floating”.
Jarrod’s works can be viewed at his website: www.factorfiles.com
IMAGE: Olivia Crang and Jarrod Factor, Stright to the 'Art, 2009. Digital image.
