SwanQuake is a unique project involving the ongoing making of an interactive artwork comprising 3-D computer graphic environments and motion-capture driven characters created from a variety of materials and methods by an interdisciplinary team gathered together and led by Igloo.

In each of the pieces, using a game controller, the viewer navigates freely throughout the 3D computer graphic environments. The spaces are comprised of both exterior and interior landscapes, each thematically, visually & sonically distinct where users can interact with avatars to create new performances / performance spaces.

SwanQuake is a surreal semi-abstract inhabited world, home to a series of potential encounters. These may be theatrical and dreamlike, sometimes uncanny perhaps even frightening, at times quotidian and familiar. It’s these interactions that inspire curiosity, wonder and the desire to continue looking and sensing. However, despite the title ‘mashup’ of computer game Quake and traditional ballet Swan Lake, there are no targets, health points, wins or dying swans here.

SwanQuake: The User Manual opens the project up to discursive reflection and expansion through its selection of articles and essays. In the first section, the User Manual takes you through some of the processes of making SwanQuake including sound composition, choreography and computer animation work. Also in section one is a modicum of do-it-yourself instructions and two views on Igloo’s work in relation to the wider field of digital arts practice and culture. In the second section, the User Manual broadens the scope of the discussion to include the ontology of game art, analysis of perspective in 3-D spaces, ‘uncanny’ realism and collisions between game artistry and commerce. With essays by Johannes Birringer, Helen Stuckey, Shiralee Saul, Bruno Martelli, Ruth Gibson, John McCormick, Katharine Neil, Alex Jevremovic, Adam Nash, Helen Sloan, Stephen Turk, Marco Gillies, Harry Brenton & David Surman. Reviewed here.

Igloo make intermedia works exploring the poetices of time, space and natural phenomena. Questioning the reality of nature and how it can be influenced by individual experience and collective mythology. Employing many of the tools of the military EC recently they have investigated the role of the’real’ in virtual environments.

Igloo are Ruth Gibson & Bruno Martelli who have earned a string of accolades for their artwork including a NESTA award for SwanQuake, a commission from the Royal Opera house for Goodbye Venus and a BAFTA nomination in 2002 for WindowsNinetyEight.