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THIS STORY HAS BEEN FORMATTED FOR EASY PRINTING
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PULSE The Virtual Circus is in town By David Wildman, 10/8/2000
The initial hoopla is now over, but the virtual reality games, paintball video art, and wild sculptures still remain as artifacts for intrepid visitors to explore.
''I've always been fascinated by the idea of an abandoned circus, or exploring a closed-down amusement park in the winter,'' says Fort Point sculptor Anna Crowley who, along with New York City-based installation artist Susan Weinthaler, spearheaded the elaborate exhibition that will remain standing until Jan. 1.
Crowley and Weinthaler first conceived of the idea while visiting Berlin, where Weinthaler had been involved in producing an art show.
''In Berlin, people would just set up in an abandoned building and stage events,'' says Crowley. ''There were lots of great artists and a really good energy. We figured we could do a similar thing here; involve a lot of other people and do something that drew on the idea of a circus or a traveling carnival.''
The work's common theme is a tongue-in-cheek futuristic approach and a whimsical sense of humor. Crowley, who works out of a studio in the Revolving Museum, provided some of her own interactive sculptures, such as two steel swings hung by chains from the ceiling, with seats made out of her metalwork renderings of a set of lips and a huge eyeball.
She also brought in Boston artists such as James Kalambokis, who invented The Exturbanator, a wild ride constructed out of a beautician's chair with a built-in hair dryer. He equipped the part that is lowered over the participant's head with video and sound so as to create a sort of low-tech virtual reality.
Weinthaler contributed a piece she calls Godzilla Golf, in which contestants don a gigantic latex Godzilla head and then terrorize a miniature town by attempt to hit golf balls into it. She also brought along video art specialists from New York such as Patrick A. Gallagher, whose piece Shoe-Ting-Gall-ery allows audience participants to make art themselves by firing different colored paint balls at a screen from a paint gun, while pretaped reactions of critics on a video screen give a thumbs up or down to the work.
''When we called it a Virtual Circus, we meant it both as virtual reality and as a play on words, that it is virtually a circus,'' says Crowley. ''I believe that things don't always have to be digital and high-tech to be interesting.''
Crowley and Weinthaler invite the public to explore the sculptural games and interactive installations of the Virtual Circus for free on Tuesday, Wednesday, and Friday from noon to 6 p.m. and Thursday from noon to 8 p.m.
The Revolving Museum is located at 288-300 A Street, Boston, in the Fort Point district. Call 439-8617 for information.
This story ran on page 09 of the Boston Globe on 10/8/2000.
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he opening party of the Virtual Circus was a bustling Fellini-esque celebration of color and spectacle, with wild artwork, musical oddities, and bizarre performing characters like sideshow floozies who swallowed goldfish.