Panel Statement

Panel: Work

The Presence of Absence (A-gain) aims to explore the relationship Timothy Leary promulgated between the hallucinogenic drug culture of the 1960’s and the computer/virtual world revolution of the last twenty five years. The concept that utopian ideologies can not deliver more than they promise will be a running concern. The interrogation of the materials takes the form of an interactive performance game. The chair establishes a structural game which allows the members of the panel to contribute their materials through a process of association with other materials being presented. The material is drawn from divergent sources and uses different technologies. The idea of the game structure allows for a ‘performative’ element to ignite insights from an association of materials. Using a low grade performance environment the forum will engage in the notion of remembering. A memory is a re-constructed experience that operates, as the ‘earth Mother’ of all ‘virtuality’. Like all Mothers in the act of reminiscence the articulation of an accurate picture is a fleeting image coloured by time.

• Nancy Reilly-McVittie (UK), Manchester Metropolitan University, Manchester.