Virtual Frontiers

Virtual Frontiers was created over two months on location in Grahamstown. It takes the idea of the frontier as its starting point, probing its connotations both as a historical concept and as a technological one. The series comprises six short Virtual Reality films shot in over 60 locations around Grahamstown using a 360 degree camera. The viewer, placed first- person, is transported through a dizzying carousel of scenes: a boxing gym; a church service; a wildlife auction; a local quarry. These scenes, when viewed in conversation with one another, bring to light some of the idiosyncrasies of Grahamstown and make apparent the contrasts of multiple experiences of one small town. The films are a loosely-woven phantasmagoria of interviews, candid footage, re-enactments and improvised performance. Historical references tear sharply through the present with the insertion of archival footage and sound recordings, as well as old photographs that have been cut up and digitally collaged. Here, neat, linear narratives have no place and temporal lines are blurred. The work hovers at the frontier between representations of the past, experiences of the present and imaginings of the future. It straddles liminal zones; it lives in grey areas; it embraces hybridity.

(c) the artist