Sarcophagus. Photo by Peter Bennetts

In this MProjects specially designed for MPavilion 2017, artist and experimental architect Matthew Bird will transform MPavilion into an interactive installation, inviting audiences to experience an immersive and performative encounter with the afterlife. Multidimensional in nature, this is an installation that seeks to challenge aesthetic, cultural and behavioural concerns, rendering Bird’s creative curiosities of esoteric and metaphysical space.

The installation will be composed of a celestial field of reimagined bells that will produce chance and compositional harmonies, will invite playful audience manipulation, and will culminate in a series of commissioned performances in collaboration with composer Daniel Von Jenatsch, choreographic artist Phillip Adams and fashion designer Pia Interlandi. This visual and sonic installation will transform MPavilion into a spirited and experimental instrument with the aim of creating a responsive, transcendent and nondenominational performance dialogue with the hereafter.

Programmed around this immersive installation are a series of twilight performance encounters, a public talk and the launch of Monash University’s newly formed urban research lab ‘The Afterlives of Cities’, with Matthew Bird; astrophysicist Daniel Price; architect and urbanist Charity Edwards; and architect and VR expert Tom Morgan. Over the course of its (after)life at MPavilion, seven local, emerging and established performers will activate the installation: Emma Riches, Tom Woodman, Rachael Wisby, Luke Fryer, Ben Hurley, Pia Lauritz and Timothy Walsh.

Matthew Bird will realise this project with the assistance of students from Monash Art Design & Architecture.

Visit MPavilion anytime during our opening hours to experience the installation in person, or come along to our mini-program of events for a closer look at the process and thinking behind this interactive experiment:

MTalks | The Afterlives of cities
Saturday 16 December, 3–4pm: Discussion with experimental architect Matthew Bird; astrophysicist and ARC Future Fellow, Daniel Price; architect and urbanist Charity Edwards; and architect and VR designer Tom Morgan.

MMeets | Matthew Bird: An immersive encounter with the afterlife
Friday 8 December, 6–7pm: Performance, followed by music from DJ Tomb Raver (7–9pm)
Saturday 16 December, 6–7.30pm: Performance and Q&A with Matthew Bird, Daniel Von Jenatsch, Phillip Adams and Pia Interlandi
Thursday 21 December, 6–7pm: Performance, followed by music by DJ Shoplifting

Read our interview with Matthew Bird.

This event is made possible by the Hugh D T Williamson Foundation through funding for MPavilion’s series of events looking at design & science.