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 CybaFaeries
EXHIBITION
COLORS MAGAZINE - NOTEBOOK PROJECT 2006
> Online Version > Artists Statement > Story Summaries > Print Version of Page TECHNOTOPIA STUDIO EXHIBITION:
Wall Street had crashed, the Berlin wall had fallen and the Cold War had thankfully fizzled out due to lack of interest. While the super powers stood around like stunned mullets, the rest of the human race got on with living. In Melbourne the underground arts/music   community thought dressing up, having
parties
while playing with technology and making art, would be a nice change from doom
and war. It was the sort of thing they had done already, but with some hustle
and bustle, they worked out
how to broadcast it live on free-to-air
TV, so everyone 
could join in. And they had one hell of a good time doing it.It was also the dawning of the digital multi-media age and that wonder of beasts, the internet. All the years of sci-fi speculation were coming true, suddenly it wasn't theory anymore, it was reality, Virtual Reality. Reality could be whatever your heart desired, and in Melbourne they desired a lot! Enough to make your head spin was the starting point. Moving into the city's office buildings abandoned because of the global recession and living in them, was their first move in taking control of their destiny.   Artists know how to live well in poverty, they get lots of practice. The recession simply brought everyone down to their level and gave them a level playing field. Hundreds of artists moved into old business office buildings and warehouses and triggered a new urban trend that produced a multi billion dollar property boom that is still astounding investors 10 years later.   Technotopia covers this expansive 1990-95 period of Melbourne's history from the inside, with an insiders eye, 400 photos, 50,000 words and 3 hours of rare video media ( media available on the cd-rom and screened free at the exhibition). A very curious blend of techno, gothic and industrial culture blossomed in the Melbourne underground in this anything goes, we'll do whatever we want, post Cold War - New World utopia. None of them had known anything other than the Cold War world, and they decided they wanted something   different
now. Without a central governing body or formal dogma, they passionately set
about to see what else life could offer. And nobody could stop them, in part
because it was largely done in secret, and in part because the old power
structures had crumbled.Technotopia was an ideal achieved, they dreamed it, they did it. Often with no money and a lot of good will. In the e-book Shepherd presents interesting and significant events over the 5 years period from small to large scale and from his insiders eye witness perspective. He's a fastidious documenter, with a quirky eye for the normally overlooked. It's a view from backstage, the staff only area, the dressing room, the back room, back alleys and rooftops, the secret areas of a secretive underground. Often they didn't know what they were doing or how it would turn out, and that was the fun part. Gone was the Cold War   cynicism, there was light at the end of this
tunnel, this was Life as an optimistic adventure. They made the rules, they
set the agenda. They
lived like there was a tomorrow, a tomorrow where they could wake up
and enjoy it all over
again. This was Technotopia.
From the summer of 1965, as a 10 year old DJ at the local beach Lifesaving Club dances, Shepherd relates eye witness details of high school revolution, publishing anarchist anti-war underground newspapers, LSD (Acid) parties, the arrival of pub rock, underground band life, and the emergence of experimental electronic music and the synthesiser into the music industry in the late 1960's / early 1970's.  Shepherd also describes converting a young Tony Cohen to the ways of electronic music in 1977 and recording Cohen's first sound piece on his experimental quad sound work Wildlife, which Cohen was engineer for, with rock guru Molly Meldrum and a pre Birthday Party Nick Cave's visits to his studio sessions and their reactions to the experimental quad soundwork. Wildlife is released on Electricity A Love Story.
... click here for Technotopia
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CybaFaeries by Garry Shepherd
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