three dancing figures appear on a background of Chromakey green with a snow covered mountain between them and the title of the work Running Machine written in Japanese Kanji

Running Machine
Yuiko Masukawa, Sam Mcgilp, Harrison Hall, Makoto Uemura and Kazuhiko Hiwa

Busy busy busy. From the simple act of walking to strenuous physical labour, audience and artists gather to build… something… in this dynamic collaboration between Australian and Japanese artists.

The human body is the raw material from which immersive digital spaces are formed, as performers build and rebuild physical and projected sculptures. Bringing a digital body into existence is a kind of birth we’ve yet to fully understand: what is digital labour, and who’s labour is it??

Australian artists Yuiko Masukawa, Harrison Hall and Sam Mcgilp have collaborated with Japanese artists Kazuhiko Hiwa and Makoto Uemura across languages and borders, to create a multi-modal work arising from their expertise across performance, design, sculpture and media art. Originally developed in Fujiyoshida, Japan, Running Machine invites us to be active in designing the future of our own experience – a celebration of a hybrid world that could be more equal than the one in which we currently reside.

Read Artist Statement

For our generation, as for all generations to come, the development and flourishing of our digital lives was concurrent with our physical lives. Maybe though, we are one of the last generations to inherit a sense of distinction between these worlds.

Running Machine is a work that has been developed over the past two years, across borders and in translation. This process has required us to slow down and listen. This receptive, slow pacing is at odds with our current digital culture, and is something that we want to bring to this work.

The lead artists for Running Machine are a heterogeneous group from different countries, experiences and abilities, and so our act of creating this hybrid live/digital work has been an act of defining practices and models for a more inclusive vision of the hybrid world to come.

Read Artist Statement

For our generation, as for all generations to come, the development and flourishing of our digital lives was concurrent with our physical lives. Maybe though, we are one of the last generations to inherit a sense of distinction between these worlds.

Running Machine is a work that has been developed over the past two years, across borders and in translation. This process has required us to slow down and listen. This receptive, slow pacing is at odds with our current digital culture, and is something that we want to bring to this work.

The lead artists for Running Machine are a heterogeneous group from different countries, experiences and abilities, and so our act of creating this hybrid live/digital work has been an act of defining practices and models for a more inclusive vision of the hybrid world to come.

Running Machine

Three people are in front of a green screen dressed in skin-tight green suits and animal masks. The person in the middle wears a grey suit over the top and is standing on a green trolley. The two other people are crouched on either side of them holding the trolley.
A stage with bright white lights and haze. You can see two figures in the haze. One is lifting up a box, the other is standing beside a tredmill.
A person is sitting on the floor wearing green. They have long dark hair and glasses. In front of them is music mixing equipment. In the background there is a wheelchair that is lit up with pink lights and a stack of cardboad boxes.
    • WED 14 – SAT 17 September 2022, 19:00 – 20:00 AEST
    • Integrated Tactile Tour and Audio Described performance FRI 16 September 19:00 AEST
    Event Concluded
  • 60 mins
    • Arts House, 521 Queensberry Street, North Melbourne, Victoria, Australia
  • English / Japanese
  • Pay if you can $35 AUD
    Standard $20 AUD
    BLAKTIX $10 AUD
    A small transaction fee will be charged per order

    • Audio Described
    • Wheelchair
    • Assistive Listening
    • Quiet Space Available
    • Tactile Tour

    This show is standing predominantly, with priority seating available for those who require. Low light (dark at times), flash and strobing projections, partial nudity. Quiet space available. For direct enquiries regarding the Tactile Tour and Audio described performance on FRI 16 September please contact Arts House: Phone (03) 9322 3720 or Text 0447 570 178 or Email artshouse@melbourne.vic.gov.au

Running Machine’s live incarnation exists gloriously beyond and between the worlds of dance and installation.

Choreography, dramaturgy, sculpture and digital elements work in sync to conjure a world that is shifting, unstable and constantly surprising.

Expectations are constructed and then subverted as the familiar limits and meanings of the human body begin to crumble beneath us.

Audiences will move through video projections of shifting scale, making their own way through the interior of the work itself. A treadmill runs persistently, the pace-maker at the heart of work. Running Machine undermines the traditionally transactional contract between audience and artwork: the artists use subtle directives, nonverbal communication and soft cues to produce active situations and invite interactions. The audience-artist relationship becomes an affective mirror, each side informing the other.

Originally developed in Fujiyoshida, Running Machine has emerged from interactions with specific sites in both Japan and Naarm. Mountains, empty streets and found objects interact with the visual and conceptual palette of the work to reshape both cities and the natural landscape.

During the IRL event, Kazuhiko Hiwa will live-build the sculptural design elements that will be formed and reformed throughout the work. These sculptures become canvases for digital projection.

Credits
  • Media Artist - Sam Mcgilp
    Digital Choreographer - Harrison Hall
    Dancer/Choreographer - Yuiko Masukawa
    Set and Lighting design - Makoto Uemura
    Sculptor - Kazuhiko Hiwa
    Performers - Geoffrey Watson, Yuiko Masukawa, Harrison Hall, Sam Mcgilp, Hiwa Kazuhiko and Makoto Uemura
    Sound Mix - Shio Otani
    Costume - Geoffrey Watson
    Lead 3D Animator - Luca Dante
    AI Motion Capture - Jamal Knight
    Translator - Yumi Umiumare, Ai Yamamoto and Tomohiro Matsuoka
    Producer - Erin Milne
    Associate Producer - Xavier O’Shannessy
    Produced by Bureau of Works
  • Running Machine is commissioned and produced by Arts House, City of Melbourne as part of BLEED 2022.
  • This project has been assisted by the Australian Government through the Australia Council, its arts funding and advisory body; the Victorian Government through Creative Victoria; the City of Melbourne through Arts House; and by Dancehouse through their On Residence program with a residency at Garambi Baan.

    BLEED (Biennial Live Event in the Everyday Digital) was conceived by Campbelltown City Council through Campbelltown Arts Centre, and the City of Melbourne through Arts House. BLEED 2022 is produced and presented by Campbelltown City Council through Campbelltown Arts Centre, and the City of Melbourne through Arts House, Taipei Performing Arts Center and Museum of Contemporary Art, Taipei.  BLEED has been supported by the Taiwan Ministry of Culture and Cultural Division, Taipei Economic and Cultural Office in Sydney.

Running Machine

    • Available On Demand
  • 7 mins 30 seconds
  • English / Japanese
  • FREE

  • 360 degree video, best accessed via your smart phone or VR headset

Enter the Running Machine virtual world by diving into a simulated experience that re-centres the body at the core of our mediated experience. What are the implications when the human body enters into a digital bargain?

This playful and experimental world is a 360-degree video work that can be accessed from either VR headsets, computers or phones. It will transport you to an endless tunnel where you will inhabit the point of view of a performer, constantly travelling through a computer generated environment consisting of 3D scans of objects, textures, environments and bodies that are the digital traces of the artistic development process. As streams of the digital world flow into our lives, take this moment to walk, swim and glide directly to the heart of the matter.

The work is a promenade through a digital environment created between Japan and so-called-Australia. Its playful approach towards digital and physical spaces and bodies invites audiences to be active agents in their interaction with technologies. At the same time it offers a powerful alternative to the platform capitalism increasingly defining our experience both on- and off-line. Reflecting both the diversity of its international team of creators and the possibilities opened up by a practice freed from commercial constraints, Running Machine invites you to walk the walk.

Credits
  • Media Artist - Sam Mcgilp
    Digital Choreographer - Harrison Hall
    Dancer/Choreographer - Yuiko Masukawa
    Set and Lighting design - Makoto Uemura
    Sculptor - Kazuhiko Hiwa
    Performers - Geoffrey Watson, Yuiko Masukawa, Harrison Hall, Sam Mcgilp, Hiwa Kazuhiko and Makoto Uemura
    Sound Mix - Shio Otani
    Costume - Geoffrey Watson
    Lead 3D Animator - Luca Dante
    AI Motion Capture - Jamal Knight
    Translator - Yumi Umiumare, Ai Yamamoto and Tomohiro Matsuoka
    Producer - Erin Milne
    Associate Producer - Xavier O’Shannessy
    Produced by Bureau of Works
  • Running Machine is commissioned and produced by Arts House, City of Melbourne as part of BLEED 2022.
  • This project has been assisted by the Australian Government through the Australia Council, its arts funding and advisory body; the Victorian Government through Creative Victoria; the City of Melbourne through Arts House; and by Dancehouse through their On Residence program with a residency at Garambi Baan.

    BLEED (Biennial Live Event in the Everyday Digital) was conceived by Campbelltown City Council through Campbelltown Arts Centre, and the City of Melbourne through Arts House. BLEED 2022 is produced and presented by Campbelltown City Council through Campbelltown Arts Centre, and the City of Melbourne through Arts House, Taipei Performing Arts Center and Museum of Contemporary Art, Taipei.  BLEED has been supported by the Taiwan Ministry of Culture and Cultural Division, Taipei Economic and Cultural Office in Sydney.
Acknowledgement of Country
Arts House, Campbelltown Arts Centre, Taipei Performing Arts Center, and Museum of Contemporary Art Taipei acknowledge the Traditional Owners of the lands we work on, the Wurundjeri Woi Wurrung, Dharawal, and Ketagalan peoples. We extend our respects to their Elders past, present and future while respecting the vast Traditional Owners Nations our digital platforms reach. We extend this acknowledgment to Aboriginal, Torres Strait Islander, and Austronesian artists, audiences and communities, and First Nations peoples globally.
墨爾本藝術之家、坎貝爾敦藝術中心、臺北表演藝術中心及台北當代藝術館向我們土地上的第一民族暨傳統所有人致上敬意,包括烏倫杰里族(Wurundjeri Woi Wurrung)、塔爾瓦斯族(Dharawal)、凱達格蘭族(Ketagalan)及其眾支系。因著BLEED數位介面所將廣泛觸及的各種傳統民族與土地, 我們尊榮各地過去、現在及未來的祖先與耆老。我們更將這份對台灣與澳洲原住民族、托雷斯海峽群島民族及南島民族的藝術家、觀眾與社群的致意延展至全球各傳統領地與第一民族。