The Vinyl Rally

“a ludic, tactile experience of noise art your grandmother would queue to have a go at” - Dan Mackinlay, Realtime.

“the sense of actually controlling something that exists in a physical space rather than a digital representation, evokes a firmly analogue approach to music and entertainment that is a world away from the sleek lines of an iPod” - Adam Bambury, culture24.

“Abela channels unrealized childhood fantasies luring visitors into his noisy and otherwise uncompromising musical practice” - Matteo Marangoni, neural magazine.

The vinyl rally is an large-scale installation combining sound art, video art and kinetic sculpture into every kid and kidult’s dream-hybrid; an immersive participatory play-set playing off vinyl fetishism, video arcade mystique and the machismo of motor sports all wrapped up in a video game played within a real world setting!

Classic first person video racing is simulated as remote control cars with styli attached, race across a track constructed from a mass of disused vinyl records. Transmitting sound (produced as the styli skim along the vinyl surface) and vision (from wireless spy cameras mounted to each car) to reengineered old school racing consoles with immersive 50” flat screens. Here players navigate the course from the vehicles point of view, not only controlling the cars movements, but also the parameters of the resulting sounds they create via a series of unique audio effects mounted onto the dashboard (by Last Gasp Laboratories) giving each car its own distinct aural flavour. These sounds are emitted from speakers built into the seats causing them to vibrate in correspondence with the movements on screen, producing a personally immersive experience aurally, visually and physically that can only be truly appreciated seated at the controls.

Photographs & videos from previous exhibitions (click images for slideshow)

Nuit Blanche, Metz, France, October 2013

Media Art Biennale WRO, Wrocław, Poland, May 2013

CTM-Festival, Berlin, Germany, January 2013

St Martins presented by Colchester Arts Center Colchester, UK October 2012

Supersonic Festival, Birmingham, UK, October 2012

LÜFTEN; Biennale of music and art @ Jahrhunderthalle Fankfurt, Germany June 2012

Sonic Protest @ Palais de Tokyo Paris, France April 2012

Trama Festival Porto, Portugal October 2011

TodaysArt, Den Hague, Netherlands, October 2011

Donau Festival, Krems, Austria, April 2011

NIME conference, Sydney, June 2010

Previous Exhibitions

Nuit Blanche Metz, October 2013
Media Art Biennale WRO Wrocław, May 2013
CTM Berlin, January – February 2013
St Martins presented by Colchester Arts Center Colchester, October 2012
Supersonic Festival Birmingham, October 2012
LÜFTEN; Biennale of music and art @ Jahrhunderthalle Fankfurt, June 2012
Sonic Protest @ Palais de Tokyo Paris, April 2012
Trama Festival Porto, October 2011
TodaysArt Brussels, October 2011
TodaysArt Den Hague, October 2011
Donau Festival Krems, April 2011
Imperial Panda Festival Sydney, March 2011
NIME conference UTS Sydney, June 2010
TINA festival (Beta Test) Newcastle, October 2009

Devised and Constructed by Lucas Abela
Dashboard Audio Processors By Hirofumi Uchino
Supported by the Australia Council of the Arts
Additional development by Alex Davies and Frederick Rodrigues

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