Digital Realism Creative Works

Abstract

‘Dolphins in the Reservoir’ is an interactive recombinant work of moving images, text and sound. It confronts the many social challenges we face through the subjective, contradictory and often uncanny experiences of individuals. Thematically it passes through challenges to health, the environment, and fast-eroding democracy; our attempts to educate order out of chaos; philosophical and scientific ways of thinking about consciousness; and possible futures, including the rise of AI. Its recurrent dolphin theme transmutes many of these ideas.Saturated with media, the individual experiences a multimodal montage of the imaginal and mundane, the institutional and vernacular, the dystopian and utopian.. Juxtaposed and multilayered, the text, images and sound employ polysemy and synaesthesia while the interface evokes a murky, liminal realm. ‘Dolphins’ is structured in six distinct cycles, which repeat with variation. A single cycle of the work grows from isolated media fragments towards a dense plurality and diversity. V/users can drive the piece with clicks, and they can drag to rearrange elements. Three preformed musical sources juxtapose acoustic and digitally transformed sound, including sonified Covid-19 wave statistics. ‘Dolphins’ features trumpet by internationally renowned soloist John Wallace, our collaborator in (austra)LYSIS, the creative ensemble of which all three authors are part.