CIVIC AT CARDIFF CONTEMPORARY
CONSIDERING THE CITY, ARCHITECTURE, ART AND THE URBAN ENVIRONMENT

PROJECT DATES: OCTOBER 2014 - NOVEMBER 2014

 

ONSITE WORK: CARDIFF STORY MUSEUM

In August 2014, a discovery was made by Jason & Becky in the fifth storey of a building in Cardiff City Centre, while carrying out research for the 2014 Cardiff Contemporary Art Festival. Amongst the findings were a series of aluminium cases, containing what appeared to be prototypes for a form of Virtual Reality headsets. The headsets, apparently secretly in development by a company named Opticus Wales Ltd., were found along with a large collection of paperwork centred around a government-backed initiative into 'Real Virtuality: the Fiction Behind the Truth'. One of these prototypes was displayed as part of the Cardiff Story's temporary collection for the duration of Cardiff Contemporary Art Festival.

 

OFFSITE WORK: CARDIFF CITY CENTRE

During their feature week as part of CIVIC at Cardiff Contemporary, Jason & Becky ran a series of sound-walks using restored versions of the prototype headsets they had found during their research. Participants were invited to re-experience a familiar environment and re-imagine the existing architecture from a restricted perspective, disorientated through sound and vision, allowing themselves to get lost in a city of adventure and intrigue.