Places
are not abstract entities, they have character, they have
fields, they exude a presence. "Lost in place" has a
completely
different meaning to "lost in space." Places are inhabited spaces of
any number and type of dimensions.
Place
is modal, whereas space
is scalar. Places are enclosing, concave, coherence; they are exhibit
entity, existence, exude ontological affirmation: aural places, visual
places, tactile places, public and private places, mental places,
polyperceptual places. Internal places, environments, sound-fields,
mind-fields, mine-fields!
In geometry, a geodesic is the shortest arc joining two points on a
curved surface.
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PETs
(Polymedia Event Theatres)
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Concept: PLACE
:= FEEDBACK(ITERATE(MODULATING(SPACE, FIELD))) |
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Historical
overview |
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In the late 1980's, The polymedia
performace group Floating Exceptions
(David Worrall, Stuart Ramsden, Virginia Read, Andrew Bernard,
Susan Reid, Andrew Smith and Kimmo Vennonen) created The Bicentennial
Dome
the portable performance space shown below. Floating Exceptions
toured
with it to stage their polymodal works in sound and image, as
performances and installations.
Following this space Worrall produced a much more minimal portable
space
and, with Stephen Duke, Dean Golja and Josh Chaffey, produced The Floriade Domes which were
first used for the large scale polymedia work Alien Garden
for the Floriade festival in 2003. |
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The
Bicentennial Dome: a geodesic hemisphere in galvanised steel and
kevlar |

The floating
exceptionsportable
performance space, photographed at night from the top of the Seymour
Centre, Sydney. |
Designed
and
constructed in 1988 as a portable touring concert space, this
heavy-duty dome toured to many Austrlian cities. It was designed
specifically to enable heavy objects such as loudspeakers, acrobatic
swings, projection screens etc to be suspended from the inside. It
takes about 10 people a day to erect, less to dismantle.
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TECHNICAL
DETAILS
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| frame |
4 frequency
icosahedral hemisphere, class I method II.
radius: 7 metres (22 feet). |
| canopy |
single piece
heat-welded scolloped Polymar 6505 suspended from the frame by means of
a custom double spring suspension system. |
| erection |
Block and tackle.
10
people x 1 day. Can be transported in a 1.5 x 2 metre (6 x 8 feet)
trailor. |
| weight |
1.4 tonne
(including
canopy). |
| technology |
16-channel sound
system, 5 projector screen display. |
| capacity |
Seats
150-200 people, depending on configuration. |
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