"The Garden Beneath The Streetlights"
Nature in its glory is abundant, bountiful and giving. Yet, in our urban haze, we forget the lushness of the living and growing world around us. We don't see the eco-systems that thrive around carparks. We step over food chains that weave amongst the cracks of pavements. Everyday, we somehow miss creatures great and small which dance their unseen waltzes in hidden corners of our crazy cities.
But now and then we may come upon an oasis, a precious space that rejuvenates us with both physical and spiritual calm. In their first-ever New Zealand show, the island6 art collective (Liu Dao) reach out from the urban maze of Shanghai to the sparkling green of Auckland to reconnect with the living earth. The electronic art collective melds images of nature with animations of contemporaneity, delighting in the pixelated playground of virtual reality, where LED swallows flutter over digitally-recreated cornfields. Featuring LEDs, video, photography and sculpture, island6 fashions a world that is impelled by technology, but inspired by life.
island6's electrifying six-year love affair with the digital world reminds us that the daily thump-thump-thump that echoesaround us is not just the footfalls of a million hurrying people, but also the beating of our own hearts. |
