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Last Dance Orange Roughy

 

3D STEREO FILM

Last Dance Orange Roughy is an immersive, large screen 3D stereo projection with multi-channel ambisonic audio. A room-sized multiple-person immersive VR experience portraying the visceral experience of the final Antarctic voyage of the icebreaker RSV Aurora Australis (affectionately know as the "Orange Roughy"), its crew, expeditioners and scientists.

Using lidar scanning, ambisonic audio recording, drone videography, video and photogrammetry, we scanned the entire ship and many crew members, scientists and expeditioners. We also scanned, video and audio recorded parts of Mawson base and surrounding areas of the Antarctic continent and some remote cabins 'on the ice'.

For Last Dance Orange Roughy, we applied motion captured dance routines, captured in our studio, to the body scans of crew members and expeditioners and placed them in situ in various locations about the ship.

The work explores the choreography of the intricate and intimate daily life and routines of those on the icebreaker RSV Aurora Australis on its final voyage to and from Antarctica to supply Australian bases. Life and work aboard the ship is intense and potentially dangerous, carried out in extreme conditions and requiring highly specialised training and experience. We wanted to try capture the intensity of the sound and colour of this life on the wild ocean as well as the monstrous irony of burning half a million litres of diesel fuel in order to carry a million litres of diesel fuel to run generators on a putative pristine wilderness.

EXHIBITED:

 

 

 

John McCormick and Adam Nash - aka Wild System - were the 2019/20 Australian Antarctic Arts Fellows with the Australian Antarctic Division. We sailed on the final Antarctic voyage of the icebreaker RSV Aurora Australis, collecting data from the ship, the voyage, the scientists, expeditioners and the crew for the entire six week voyage. We used lidar scanning, photogrammetry, drone videography, and ambisonic audio recording, among other methods to capture the energy and activity of the voyage. We also spent time on Mawson and Casey stations in Antarctica, experiencing the icy continent and station life first hand. We collected massive amounts of data and modulated them into various artistic outputs.

This project has been assisted by the Australian Government, through the Department of Agriculture, Water and the Environment, Australian Antarctic Division. Antarctic Arts Program: Sachie Yasuda, Tiffany Brooks.

This project has also been assisted by ANAT, the Australian Network for Art and Technology, RMIT University, and Swinburne University.

Adam and John would like to extend their thanks to all the crew and expeditioners aboard the final voyage of the RSV Aurora Australis to the Antarctic Continent.