Artists  Statement

Scenario is a 360-degree, 3D cinematic installation whose narrative, inspired by the experimental television work of Samuel Beckett, is produced through interaction between the audience and humanoid characters with artificial intelligence (AI). The title is a Commedia dell’arte term for the way in which the dramatic action depends on how actors and audience interact. A female humanoid character has been imprisoned in a concealed basement, along with her four children by her father, who lives above ground with his daytime family. This underground family lead the audience on an exploration of the basement labyrinth in search of possible ways they can together resolve the mystery of the family’s imprisonment, and so effect their escape before certain death. A series of shadowy humanoid sentinels track the family and the audience, rapidly interpreting and responding to audience behaviour by means of a sophisticated AI system, and physically try to block the family’s escape at every turn, creating a narrative that evolves according to the physical interaction of humanoids and audience.
Scenario is an experimental study for a research project supported under the Australian Research Council’s Fellowship and Discovery Project funding schemes.
https://www.jeffreyshawcompendium.com/collaborative-project/scenario

• Dennis Del Favero is an ARC Australian Professorial Fellow at COFA and the Faculty of Engineering, Director of the iCinema Research Centre, and Deputy-Director of the National Institute for Experimental Arts, all at UNSW. He is also a Visiting Professorial Fellow at ZKM, Germany, Visiting Professor at University IUAV of Venice, Italy and Visiting Professor at City University of Hong Kong, and editor of the Digital Arts Edition published by Hatje Cantz (Germany). He has held numerous solo exhibitions including at the Sprengel Museum, Hannover, ViaFarini, Milan and Neue Galerie, Graz, and has participated in major group exhibitions including Sydney Film Festival; International Architecture Biennale, Rotterdam; International Biennial of Contemporary Art of Seville; Videonale at Kunstmuseum Bonn; and Battle of the Nations War Memorial, Leipzig (joint project with Jenny Holzer). He is currently engaged in interdisciplinary art and science projects that explore the aesthetic relationship between human and non-human systems through the experimental reformulation of the relationship between the environment and society using digital media.
• Stephen John Sewell (born 1953) is an Australian playwright and screenwriter.
• Professor Maurice Pagnucco is  the Head of the School of Computer Science and Engineering at UNSW, Sydney, AU