Media Release

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For immediate release
August 2 , 2006

U.K. art group brings wireless chase game to the Banff New Media Institute

Blast Theory: Can You See Me Now?
August 11 to 14, 2006 12 p.m. to 2 p.m. and 6 p.m. to 8 p.m.
Admission: Free
Room 204, Jeanne and Peter Lougheed Building, The Banff Centre
Information: 403.762.6301 • 800.413.8368
Presented as part of the 2006 Banff Summer Arts Festival

The artists in the Brighton, England-based collective Blast Theory made a name for themselves with a series of dozens of audacious interactive artworks that played throughout the 90s and into the 21st century. In 1997, they were pushing the boundaries of online and wireless installation artwork and interactivity – for Kidnap in 1998, the group launched a lottery, drawing two entrants who would be randomly kidnapped and brought to a secret location for 48 hours, while viewers tracked it all online.

On August 11, Blast Theory comes to the Banff New Media Institute at The Banff Centre with one of their most popular works, Can You See Me Now? Created in 2001 in collaboration with the Mixed Reality Lab, the work explores the proliferation of wireless technology and handheld devices around the world. It recreates a world where virtual reality and reality intermingle, drawing viewers – or in this case players – into a desperate chase in real time.

To play, Blast Theory’s runners will be roaming The Banff Centre campus, tracking and chasing online avatars controlled by other participants through GPS and handheld communication. The game plays on the idea that online and wireless technologies have proliferated intimate connections in public spaces. Winner of a Golden Nica Award for interactive art at the Prix Ars Electronica in 2003, Can You See Me Now? has already been run in multiple locations, including Rotterdam, Brighton, Barcelona, and Tokyo.

Led by Matt Adams, Ju Row Farr, and Nick Tadavanitj, Blast Theory’s work is particularly focused on the social and political aspects of technology, using video, computers, performance, installation, mobile, and online technologies to uncover the ideologies in the information that increasingly surround us every day. Early multimedia performances, including Chemical Wedding, Stampede, and Gunmen Kill Three drew on club culture, while post-2000 works such as Uncle Roy All Around You, and the upcoming Day of the Figurines dig deeper into the convergence of online and mobile technologies.

Internationally, Blast Theory’s work has been represented at art fairs and festivals including the Biennale of Sydney, the Dutch Electronic Arts Festival in Rotterdam, Basel Art Fair, and ArtFutura in Barcelona.

Can You See Me Now? is supported by the Arts Council of England. Blast Theory’s work in Banff is supported by The Banff Centre’s Paul D. Fleck Fellowship in the Arts.

For a high-resolution, downloadable image from Can You See Me Now?:
http://www.banffcentre.ca/media_room/images/2006/bsaf/#new_media

For more information on the 2006 Banff Summer Arts Festival:
http://www.banffcentre.ca/bsaf/