For Australia Day 2021

 Great ad, watch for all the little vignette stories...and the last scene

 

"Australia 2031. Our once united nation has been divided by the great state walls. Only Aussie lamb has the power to break down the borders and reunite the states together around a lamb barbie. Because what unites us is more delicious than what divides us. Share The Lamb."

Empire 3D

Finally setting my Rone photos in an album, when I returned to Rone's Empire site to check one or two details. Imagine my amazement to find you can now do a 3D virtual tour of his Empire project.

The Dining Room (Rone)

Firstly what was Empire - 

High in the Dandenong Ranges, a sprawling art deco mansion lies empty, nature creeping through its crumbling walls. This was Burnham Beeches. Built in 1933 for the Nicholas family (Alfred was a wealthy industrialist and founder of the Aspro brand), it is an Art Deco Streamline Moderne style mansion. It has been a research facility, childrens hospital and luxury hotel, before being closed in the late 1990s. The whole property was purchased by Adam Garrison & Shannon Bennett in 2010, but the mansion remained empty. 

In early 2018 Rone was offered the opportunity to utilise the building to create a series of murals. His idea was of a unsuspecting visitor walking into an abandoned residence and discovering what has been left behind in the remains of the lives lived inside the mansion. It was Rone's most immersive installation to date, his hauntingly powerful portraits augmented by sound, light, scent, interior and botanical design elements, in addition to VR and AR technology.

The Lounge (Rone)

It took more than 12 months, for the work of painting and styling to transfer the former derelict building into Empire. Roll video...

 

For those lucky enough to get the limited tickets, there was a 6 week season where you could stroll through the installation, before it was all stripped away and returned to sterile white walls. 

For those unlucky enough to miss out, and for those like me who want to re-visit again and again, there is now the 3D virtual tour.

 

Not quite the same as being there, but it does allow you to target in on aspects or details you missed - like the tree tunnel - a whole lot clearer without the dust cloud that pervaded it, adding atmosphere, but took my second walk-through to spy out the book leaves. And if you missed it - this is your chance to catch up, so check it out.

It was an awesome, unforgettable experience on the day, and this just adds to it. Thank you technology & Rone.

My favourite room, and the Home screen on my phone

All at sea

'On the Java Ridge' by Jock Serong

Was reading this prior to and during the build-up to the American election, so decided the machinations of this fictional Prime Minister is not so unbelievable after all. 

The ‘Java Ridge’ referred to in the title is the name of a surf charter boat. During the story it is skippered by tour leader Isi Natoli and her Indonesian crew. They are taking a group of Australian surf enthusiasts in search of the perfect wave, and are sheltering inside the reef encircling the remote Indonesian island Dana when a storm delivers the ‘Takalar’ and her load of asylum seekers onto their reef.

At the same time in Canberra, it is the eve of a federal election. Cassius Calvert (Minister for Border Integrity) has outsourced border security to a private company - Core Resolve, to employ a new hard-line stance regarding maritime interception and assistance to people-smuggling boats crossing into Australian territorial waters.

The story is alternately told from the viewpoint of Isi, Cassius and Roya (a young Afghani refugee aboard the ‘Takalar’, fleeing the Taliban with her heavily pregnant mother). The minor characters the doctor, the Takalar’s captain, even Cassius’ P.A. are well rounded and fleshed out.

In typical Serong-style the ending leaves you wrung out, the language and the descriptions are vivid, the plot takes you to unexpected places and scenarios.