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BBlast Theory founded in 1991 by Matt Adams, Niki Jewett, Will Kittow and Ju Row Farr. The group is currently led by Matt Adams, Ju Row Farr and Nick Tandavanitj. Other members include the film maker John Hardwick and performer Jamie Iddon.
Over its history, Blast Theory’s work has explored interactivity and the social and political aspects of technology through a multitude of forms – using performance, installation, video, mobile and online technologies.
Blast Theory’s artists describe their work as collaborative and interdisciplinary. With early works such as Gunmen Kill Three (1991) and Chemical Wedding (1994) fitting more in the category of live and performance art, Desert Rain (1999) saw a shift towards work that aims to question performativity, site and presence.
Works such as Can You See Me Now? (2001), a game of chase through real and virtual city streets, have seen Blast Theory mix video games and performance, with Can You See Me Now? and You Get Me (2008) being open to a worldwide audience via the internet.
Blast Theory makes collaborative, interdisciplinary work that is highly innovative in its process and execution. To maintain this practice requires long, rigorous periods of development followed by international showings over several years that are usually context specific. Innovation and risk are central to the artist's work.
Blast Theory has a strong track record of taking major artistic risks - in Kidnap (1998), for example - and has tackled themes of violence, pornography and politics. The group has made significant innovations in its use of technology, in its working methods, and in its business model. The uses of locative media and mixed reality in works such as Can You See Me Now? (2001) and I Like Frank (2004) have had a wide impact.
Blast Theory recognises that real innovation requires significant risks and it continues to be agile and highly responsive to new ideas and opportunities. It's BAFTA nomination for Technological and Social Innovation is an example of the success of that model.
The group's collaboration with the University of Nottingham has grown and deepened over ten years and is the longest and most productive partnership between a university and a group of artists anywhere in the world. It has yielded four BAFTA nominations, a Prix Ars Electronica and academic papers of international significance at world leading conferences in computer science, computer human interaction and ubiquitous computing. This dialogue between scientific and artistic research now forms a core thread of Blast Theory's practice.
In recent years Blast has been increasingly widely acknowledged as innovators in games, winning the Maverick Award at the Games Developers Conference in 2005 and being represented by Creative Artists Agency in Los Angeles for games design. The group's recent game projects have probed the fundamental laws of games and play, posing questions about the boundaries between games and the real world that also have significant ramifications for art, performance and virtual worlds. The artists have contributed extensively to debates about the development of games as an art form and how games may be conceptual, intellectually and emotionally demanding while also engaging a wide audience.
Blast Theory's early work was in the field of live art. From Desert Rain (1999) onwards the relationship with live art and performance became less apparent, and it is perhaps notable that, for example, the group's participation in Live Culture at Tate Modern was as curators of a video programme.
In recent years, however, there has been a marked recognition of the importance of the group's thinking about perform-activity, presence and site specificity which has led Matt Adams to become a Visiting Professor at the Central School of Speech and Drama and an Honorary Fellow at the University of Exeter. Books such as Virtual Theatres by Gabriella Giannachi and Digital Performance by Steve Dixon have highlighted the group's groundbreaking intermingling of the real with the virtual, the ludic with the performative and the playful with the serious. The artists remain fascinated with how technology, especially mobile devices, creates new cultural spaces in which the work is customised and personalised for each participant and what the implications of this shift might be for artistic practice. How are the economically and culturally disenfranchised engaged amid a culture of planned obsolescence and breathless futurism? The group's expertise has led to frequent invitations from the television industry as creators (BBC Interactive Factual and Learning, Superfine Films), as mentors (Crossover Australia, Crossover UK) and as speakers (Picnic in Amsterdam, Broadcast Summit in Adelaide etc.). Soft Message (2006), a 30-minute commission for Radio 3, was a dialogue between the artists and radio listeners on their mobile phones.
Blast Theory's base at Wellington Road in Brighton has five studios/offices and hosts an international residency programme. The building acts as a meeting place for regional, national and international practitioners in games, locative media, mobile applications, experimental performance, interactive art and technological innovation. Most particularly, Matt, Ju and Nick have systematically explored the role of the audience; from Can You See Me Now? (2001), which places the audience online alongside Blast Theory runners, to Day Of The Figurines (2006), where the audience themselves populate an imaginary town and guide its outcomes. Works such as Rider Spoke (2007) and Uncle Roy All Around You (2003) use the real city to invite new roles for the audience. Uncle Roy All Around You prompted transgressive actions by players as they were asked to explore the offices and back streets of the city while Rider Spoke embeds personal recordings made by the audience into it and gives the audience license to find any path through them.
These projects have posed important questions about the meaning of interaction and, especially, its limitations. Who is invited to speak, under what conditions and what that is truly meaningful can be said?
Recent work uses mobile technologies such as text messaging, MMS messaging and 3G phones with the aim of “exploring how technology might be considered to create new cultural spaces in which the work is customised and personalised for each participant”.
Blast Theory has won the Golden Nica for Interactive Art at Prix Ars Electronica, the Maverick Award at the Game Developers Choice Awards in the USA and The Hospital's Interactive Art Award among others.
Internationally, Blast Theory's work has been shown at ICC in Tokyo, the Chicago Museum of Contemporary Art, Sydney Biennale, National Museum in Taiwan, Hebbel Theater in Berlin, Basel Art Fair, Dutch Electronic Arts Festival, Sonar Festival in Barcelona, Palestine International Video Festival. Masterclasses, mentoring, internships, seminars and lectures are central to the group's dissemination of its ideas around the world.
Unit 5, 20 Wellington Road
Portslade
Brighton
BN41 1DN
UK
Skype
Blasttheory
http://www.blasttheory.co.uk/bt/index.php
Here are few videos reflect some of their work.