"Doing the Australian Antarctic Arts Fellowship was a life-changing experience for me, both professionally and personally. It allowed me to practice my art very intensively in the world’s most extreme setting and bring together important strands of the digital and the physical in an environment of highly skilled cooperation."

Meet Dr Adam Nash

Adam Nash makes playable digital virtual art. He is widely recognized as one of the most original artists working in virtual environments, sound art and mixed-reality technology.

Based in Melbourne, Australia, Nash is a digital artist, composer, programmer, performer, teacher and writer. He works with the digital as site of playable art. Working in a post-convergent idiom, his work uses the web, game engines, virtual environments, generative and procedural programming, data and motion capture, artificial intelligence, synthetic evolution, audio, vision and live performance.

Collaborating with John McCormick as Wild System, Nash uses combinations of virtual reality, realtime 3D, generative sound, artificial intelligence and robotics to present absorbing and engaging interactive installations.

Arts Fellowship project

Wild System (John McCormick and Adam Nash) sailed on the final Antarctic voyage of the icebreaker RSV Aurora Australis in 2019/20. They documented the voyage using cutting-edge technologies including drones, a portable motion capture system, ambisonic sound recording, still and 360 degree video cameras and LiDAR scanning. They collected data from the ship, the voyage, the scientists and the crew for the entire six-week voyage.

The data recorded during the voyage will form an immersive exhibition using projection mapping, ambisonic audio, motion sensing and virtual reality (VR). The work will incorporate the crew’s interactions with the ship, physical and mechanical operations, and weather and ocean conditions, resulting in a moving memorial to the iconic vessel.

Find Adam Nash’s work

Wild System’s work from their fellowship will exist in different formats, in actual and virtual exhibitions. Take a virtual tour of RSV Aurora Australis, experience icebreaking in a 360 video (best with a VR headset), and visit Wild System’s website to discover more.

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