SYSTEM_ERROR

For millennia, we, as humans, have striven to grasp the bounds of our consciousness. While we plod along with technological advancements, futurists pontificate that at some point – possibly this century – we mere mortals will become transhuman. Part cyborg, part person. Chamber Made’s SYSTEM_ERROR is a mesmerising, futuristic masterpiece that ponders humanity and the magic of connection.

After a COVID-imposed hiatus stretching over 450 days, Arts House have reopened their doors with an aural-visual spectacle where technology and the human body collide. Centred around a bespoke instrument of electrically conductive tape that functions as a live mixing circuit, co-creators and performers Tamara Saulwick and Alisdair Macindoe act as conductors when they tap, trace, jump and gracefully dance, enveloping the room with myriad sounds, music and auto-tuned dialogue.

The stage is eerily bare. The conductive tape is designed to resemble a microchip or hardboard. The large-scale screen emits bold lines in two columns. Then, two performers emerge, sporting black jumpsuits. They begin to play with two electrically conductive sound pads, filling the room with music. As the production unfolds, the performers traverse the stage and attempt to connect with one another within the prism of a computer system. However, it appears one of them (Macindoe) is unable to compute his surroundings – his memory is frazzled, his brain fails him. As he is a man with no connection to the past or future, he faces perpetual imprisonment in the present, thus triggering a ‘system error’.

‘In the work, we are exploring a fascination with the inherent failings in all systems, whether they be biological or technological,’ says Saulwick.

Saulwick and Macindoe were terrific. Saulwick’s career spans more than 20 years and she has a penchant for creating sound-based works, while Macindoe has worked across the contemporary dance scene as a critically acclaimed performer, composer and sound designer.

SYSTEM_ERROR is a multi-modal work of art, weaving together art forms of dance, sound, music, lighting and projections to contemplate the human form, its frailties and imperfections, and its quest for immortality.

SYSTEM_ERROR
Arts House, 521 Queensberry Street, North Melbourne, 3051
artshouse.com.au/events/system-error

Image: Pia Johnson