ALL NEW GEN

1992–1993

“Welcome to the world of ALL NEW GEN,
thank you for playing”

“Beware, there is no moral code in The Zone”

ALL NEW GEN came from a desire to disrupt the machismo world of video games with a female non binary centric computer game. Originally called ‘Game Girl’ (a direct play on ‘Game Boy’) the project morphed into ALL NEW GEN. Its first iteration in 1992 was a series of light boxes and sound works, introducing the characters and scenarios of a hypothetical computer game.

This was followed in 1993 by the interactive ALL NEW GEN CD-ROM, where an omnipresent supershero collaborates with her band of DNA Sluts to bring down Big Daddy Mainframe. The CD-ROM was exhibited as a stand alone artwork and also as the centrepiece of the ALL NEW GEN installation. Exhibited in Australia and internationally the installation expands the ALL NEW GEN world into experiences and pleasurable distractions for the audience.

Elements of the ALL NEW GEN installation are still included in Australian and international group exhibitions including the 6m x 3m billboard of ‘A Cyberfeminist Manifesto for the 21st Century’; ‘ALL NEW GEN’ image and sound compilation; the ‘Bonding Booth’ private space with video ‘Beg and Gen in the Bonding Booth’; lightboxes; sound works; photographs and sculptural objects.

This video was playing in the Bonding Booth as part of the VNS Matrix 1992 installation All New Gen. The Bonding Booth was a place for “pleasurable distraction”, and a site for “replenishing your g-slime”, your fuel to continue the mission to annihilate Big Daddy Mainframe. The video depicts pink-hued soft-core imagery, accompanied by a text/soundtrack which tells the story of Gen and Beg bonding in the ways of deep dense-sense data.

All New Gen: Title Frame. VNS Matrix, 1993, slide photo
All New Gen: Title Frame. VNS Matrix, 1993, slide photo

The Limen: You are at the threshold.... Seemingly infinite and infinitely small, neither here nor there, with half remembered snatches of your life or is it? It is darkly seductive here, and you could stay, but you could also choose to slide through the cartesian reality grid and enter the spaciousness of the CorpusFantastica.

These Brave New Girls are as straightforward in aims and intentions as any kickboxing teenage boy, and their sassy (dare one say spunky?) approach is utterly winning. If this is ‘the virus of the new world disorder’ I crave further infection.

Adrian Dannatt, Flash Art 01/03/1994

Audio

Project Types

  • Billboard
  • Installation
  • Interactive CD-ROM
  • Lightbox
  • Object
  • Photograph
  • Sound Work
  • Video

Project History

1992
Lightboxes and sound works TISEA (Third International Symposium on Electronic Art), Australian Centre for Photography. Sydney, Australia
1993
Lightboxes and sound works Fannie Bay Park. Darwin, Australia
1993
Lightboxes and sound works FISEA. Minneapolis, USA
1993
Installation (mixed media) Experimental Art Foundation. Adelaide, Australia
1994
Installation (mixed media) ISEA ’94 (International Symposium on Electronic Art). Helsinki, Finland
1994
CDROM “Cyber”, Gallerie Patrick Martin. Paris, France
1995
Installation (mixed media) Australian Centre for Contemporary Art. Melbourne, Australia
1995
Installation (mixed media) Artspace. Sydney, Australia
1995
Installation (mixed media) YYZ Gallery. Toronto, Canada
1995
CDROM “utopia/dystopia: feminist activism and art” Centre of the Arts. San Francisco, USA

Additional People

  • Deb Shaw Sound Engineer
  • Fiona Martin Sound Engineer
  • John Tonkin Animation
  • Holdin Hope customised installation furniture

Events

Attached Files

Publications