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Urban
Exile
A stillness
surrounds me. I sit in front of my computer. Outside I see windblown
gum-trees in the fading light of a typical Melbourne winters day. I'm logged
on and about to enter the bright and colourful space of a virtual gallery.
Netscape 2 is up and I scroll my bookmarks to find 'Urban Exile' (http://www.matra.com.au/~exile/
for those who've not visited). The homepage is loading and I have a
few moments to drift away from the phone call and papers I dealt with
moments earlier. Virtual
galleries are like that; you can just interrupt whatever you are doing,
pay a visit and then get right back to work or whatever you did before.
The homepage has loaded and I have entered a frames based environment
where the scroll widow on the left is a long vertical frame containing
icons . Each icon (a simple silhouetted figure of a helmeted nude male
which appears Phoenician in origin) is obviously a hotlink to a site
or event. The larger central frame features the floor plan of a circular
building of eight rooms against a background of red cracked earth. The
rooms are identified as: 'Private, Ceramics, Coming attractions, Current
exhibitions, Digital Aesthetics, Periphery and Eartheart' . In the centre
is a space marked 'Gallery Foyer.' Naturally, an invitation to venture
into the 'private' room is too tempting. The artwork can wait. I arrive
at Gray's home page, find out about his sexuality and his taste in decor
and his partner (more detail/experience on http://www.matra.com.au/~exile/syn/).
See how easily one can get sidetracked on the web. Another link, another
button and suddenly you're travelling away from your intended destination
at a meg a second. It's time
to start looking around the gallery. No cask wine here! No distracting
acquaintances to run into unexpectedly. Well, lets go in! I'm asked
if I've got the Shockwave plug-in and as it happens I don't. Might as
well prepare dinner as I download this 2.1 meg file on the V34 modem.
35 minutes later I have Shockwave installed and I'm ready to go and
have a look around. So, PCD is exhibiting right now! I know PCD. One
of the cyberhippies in Sydney. PCD's a great guy who has well and truly
paid his dues to the art world. He has been around long enough to remember
when valves were being replaced by transistors and all the electronic
gear started getting smaller. Great! I'm looking forward to navigating
my way through PCD's assembled works. Graham Crawford and Gavyn Lister,
the webmasters of Urban Exile used to run shows in a hardspace gallery
in Newtown. Two years ago they began to duplicate these shows on the
net. They very quickly realised that the difference in environment required
a radical departure in presenting the work and the artist. A virtual
gallery offers more and, at the same time, reduced options to the director
/ curator. Graham
and Gavyn are aware of hard- and software limitations in presenting
work in virtual spaces and on a medium where large downloadable files
translate into long waits for -who - knows - what - in the end. As I
press dial buttons on a simulated telephone or remote (I'm not sure
which) , I experience examples of PCD's work. I load option after option
from the menu to find a random selection of works presented diversely
as text, still images, slide-shows (...that's what shockwave was for
) and so on. I find a curator's statement which explained PCD's long
and distinguished involvement with the Sydney fringe. Now I don't know
how many of you have been to a virtual gallery or how often you re-visit,
but I have discovered on repeated visits that the download of the next
image is an experience which radically differs from a walk through in
a traditional gallery. Each screen refresh is a strange strip-tease
where the new image reveals a little more of itself. Each transition
plays tricks with expectations and predictions. I dream away as the
download takes place. Finally, when the image is complete and understood(?);
the hunt begins again: 'what's next?'. Urban Exile
is one of few Australian virtual galleries (I believe it's also the
first). It has the look and feel of a professionally operated space
but none of the 'where's your chequebook?' or: 'ahh - there's another
Art Almanac carrying art-student' assessment which greets many visitors
of commercial hardspace galleries. Exile is commercial in the sense
that works shown can usually be purchased on line. The site has become
hugely popular. Recently Exile received over 2000 'hits' in one hour
(which resulted in a major server crash). A visitor rate like that is
only rivaled by blockbuster shows at major International public galleries.
Yet Exile, that is to say Gavyn and Graham operate out of a tiny flat
high above the hussle of Darlinghurst Road in the middle of Kings Cross
with nothing more by way of equipment that the average home user would
have, a PC a modem and a scanner. The rest is dedication and talent.
There is more to say and more to explore but it's time to hit the "hard
close" button on the PPP window. By now I've killed a couple of
hours and in the meantime my work refused to run away to a better home
so I guess I'd better get back to it....
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