New partnership announced with MIFF
Arts House and the Melbourne International Film Festival are delighted to announce a new partnership focused on experimentation, new technologies and untold stories.
Based at North Melbourne Town Hall and on the land of the Kulin Nations, Arts House is where artists and audiences gather to discover new frontiers in contemporary performance. Hyperlocal and intergalactic, Arts House development and presentation programs create new live experiences across artforms. In a world now thoroughly digitised, artists are pushing the boundaries of where the live experience takes place.
“Together with the Melbourne International Film Festival, we are excited to support artists to fully experiment with and explore a broad array of new technologies and present significant works of scale in this field” – Emily Sexton, Arts House Artistic Director
The Melbourne International Film Festival (MIFF) celebrates film and storytelling, presenting an immense, culturally and linguistically diverse program each year that brings our city alive through cinema in all its forms. Since 2016, MIFF VR has been an integral part of the festival experience, delivering the very best of virtual reality storytelling to sold-out audiences, bringing game-changing artists to Melbourne, championing emerging voices, and pushing the boundaries of new and exciting technologies.
“We are thrilled to partner with Arts House to continue to support artists in the pursuit of creative expression and to bring innovative and compelling works at the intersection of technology and storytelling to MIFF audiences, this year and into the future” – Al Cossar, Melbourne International Film Festival Artistic Director
As part of MIFF 2019, Arts House will be transformed into a hub of immersive VR experiences, headlined by 3D VR experience The Waiting Room by creators Molly Reynolds, Rolf de Heer and Mark Eland. The Waiting Room asks the question: what if humans are an invading alien force?
The Waiting Room ruminates on humanity, on its creativity and its destructiveness. Presented on the Dreamdeck360 platform, it invites participants to consider a deep, meditative engagement with the questions at the heart of the work. They are questions familiar to both directors, with Reynolds and de Heer frequently addressing issues of colonisation and cultural survival, through films such as Another Country (MIFF 2015) and Still Our Country – Reflections on a Culture (MIFF 2014).
More VR experiences at Arts House will be announced in July, with all tickets going on sale on 12 July.
