Skye Gellmann

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We need to purchase the technology required for you the audience to enter our performance.

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The Project

Using an iphone you download a specially designed app and enter a virtual world as you enter the performance space. The Blindscape app is a 3D audio virtual reality simulator. As you begin to explore Blindscape the performers infiltrate that virtual world.

The Plea

We have generated the content, the venue is booked and the date of our premiere performance at the Next Wave Festival in May is fast approaching.

One thing is missing.. We need to purchase the technology required for you the audience to enter our performance. Each audience member uses an iTouch or iPhone with provided specially designed application to navigate and be immersed by Blindscape. Specifically we need twenty-five iTouches. The iTouches and iPhones will become part of the shows collateral giving life to future presentations.

We have also worked hard to provide you with some quality incentives if you support us. Please check them out and choose to receive one.

Any extra money that we raise over the $3000 will go towards helping us to purchase extra smart phones. 

Blindscape merges technology with spectacular circus performance in a way that's never been done before, and we need your help to raise the funds so the work reaches its full potential.

Help us get there!

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The Drive

I'm really excited by an imaginary world living with the real. For me, Blindscape is an exploration around the perception of seeing. It functions to challenge the audience to see in new ways beyond the eyes.

Through Blindscape we are looking at societies hunger for personal technologies. iPhones, cameras, flash lights, pagers, gadgets, there was even a time when digital watches were pretty cool personal technology. I wonder when the day will be, when I'll be able to wikipedia search just by thinking? I'm very excited by the fact that part of the show (the iPhone game) will exist outside of the performance space. By using personal technologies in the performance we don't mean to just reflect society, but by exploring those technologies we wish to unveil new ways of experiencing ourselves.

Recently my Mum was diagnosed with rapid hearing loss. I've never had a parent develop a disability before. When I started making Blindscape I realised that in five years she may not be able to experience it as people with regular hearing could. I also realised that I had the same symptoms of ringing ears, ear pain and occasional hearing loss, but in a minor form. The fact that I might go deaf too struck me. She tells me that the hearing loss causes her problems - dizzy spells and vertigo, where she suddenly for no reason feels like the floor is spinning and she collapses on the ground. At foremost I am a balance artist. It's what I've done since I was ten and what I pride myself on. I'm not sure how I would handle not being able to do what I love. My Mum's life is changing fast in a negative way but she still stays positive. I can't imagine the internal exploration she must be going through. 

The People

Creator/ Performer - Skye Gellmann

Skye Gellmann is an circus artist and performance maker based in Melbourne, Australia. After finishing his studies at the National Institute of Circus Arts he won a number of awards including Short and Sweet Festivals Most Promising Male Actor (2006), Melbourne Fringe Festivals Best Circus (2007), Emerging Circus Artists Award (2007), and The Village Award, for most outstanding production (2008). In 2010 he received the Sydney Fringe Festivals awards for Best Circus/Physical-Theatre Production, for Retinal Damage. In 2011 his work Mothlight played at the 2011 Adelaide Fringe where it was awarded Best Circus.

His stand-out work Scattered Tacks has toured extensively including spaces such as the Brisbane Powerhouse and the Noorderzon Performing Arts Festival (the Netherlands). In 2010 Scattered Tacks received a $20,000 Presentation Grant from the City of Melbourne to play at Artshouse's Meat Market.

www.skyegellmann.com

Devisor/ Performer - Kieran Law

Kieran Law is a performance devisor and physical theatre performer and who graduated from the performance studies course at Queensland University of Technology in 2008.

For the past three years Kieran has been based in Brisbane producing, devising and performing in the independent theatre sector. Kieran has worked with and been some of Brisbane’s most interesting directors and companies including, Sven Swensen’s Pentimento Productions, Brian Lucas, Norman Price, Lisa O’Neill, Benjamin Knapton (Associate Director of CIRCA), Kat Henry, Daniel Santangeli (Room 328), Margi Brown-Ash, Jacqui Carroll (Ozfrank), Emma Che-Martin and Dead Puppet’s Society.

Game Programmer - Dylan Sale

Dylan Sale is a computer programmer and game designer currently living in Adelaide, South Australia. He studied Mathematics and Computer Science at the University of Adelaide, achieving a Bachelor of Mathematics and Computer Science in 2005 and a First Class Honors degree in Computer Science in 2006. From there he started a PhD in Computer Vision, also at the University of Adelaide. He left his PhD studies in 2010 when he co-created his company, Two Lives Left with two fellow PhD students. The company is focused on developing casual games for iPhone and iPad.

Two Lives Left have to date released three successful games on the iPhone App Store. Wheeler’s Treasure (which was in part funded by a Creative Industries grant from the South Australian government) was their first game and was released to critical success and has had over 70 000 downloads. Their second game, Santa Trapper has had over 30 000 downloads. Their third game, Pilot Winds was critically acclaimed and has achieved over 500 000 downloads. Dylan developed much of these games, including the game engine used and designing large sections of the games themselves. Two Lives Left recently released Codify, a programming app for the iPad which has had wide ranging news coverage including in Wired, The Guardian and various other online blogs and news sites.

Sound Design - Thom Browning

Thom Browningis a Brisbane based multi-disciplinary artist and producer. He is a graduate of the QUT Creative Industries faculty majoring in Performance Studies and over the past eight years has immersed himself in creating art, working extensively in Australia and Asia as a performer, performance maker, sound and multimedia designer, composer, musician, DJ, VJ, artsworker and producer.

Thom is a founding member and director of Imaginary Theatre, a company creating performances and arts experiences for children and young people. Thom also works freelance across multiple disciplines, creating work as a solo artist as well as with organisations, groups and individuals including Circa, LATT Children’s Theatre (South Korea), KITE Arts Education Program at QPAC, State Library of Queensland, deBase Productions, Restaged Histories Project, Offset Art, Daniel Santangeli, Kieran Law and Genevieve Trace, Louise Bezzina, Red Paper Performance Company, Vena Cava, The Beans, Boogie Lounge Bandits and Liam Griffin.

Creative Producer - Gareth Hart

Gareth Hart is a Melbourne based independent artist with strong interests in Choreography, Theatre and Photography. His practise is based in an investigative improvisation process, informed by the potential of the body as a site for conceptual understanding, artistic challenge and aesthetic rigor.

His performance work has been seen widely along the east coast of Australia at various venues including The Malthouse Theatre, Dancehouse, Federation Square, Brisbane Powerhouse, and the National Gallery of Australia (Canberra).

Most recently, Gareth has accepted a position as co-Artistic Director for the 2011-2012 Crack Theatre festivals, as part of This Is Not Art. In previous projects, Gareth has acted within a leadership capacity as project head, producer and event manager, having secured funding from a number of local and state authorities.

www.garethhart.net