Be afraid - Here comes The Cube
Watch out: Here comes The Cube
Scary: The Cube is
interactive art based on a true story about the
disappearance of science students.
Prepare for a heart-stopping experience next week, when The Cube lands in the middle of the city.
Solo audience members wearing the latest in virtual reality technology will enter a shipping container to find themselves, literally, at the very centre of a “solve it yourself” thriller film, inspired by an unsolved mass disappearance in 1950s America.
The sinister events that inspired UK-based transmedia artist Simon Wilkinson to write The Cube remain a mystery to this day.
In 1959, eight students and a science teacher from the Magic Valley Liberal Arts College mysteriously vanished in a Nevada Desert. Two weeks after their disappearance, police discovered a black box in the desert containing eight letters which the students had written to their parents.
Now, nearly 60 years on, The Cube tells the story from the perspective of one of the lost students.
The show has played across the world and is in New Zealand for the first time. It is in Hastings as part of the Harcourts Hawke’s Bay Arts Festival.
The Cube is described as a short film blending “digital technology, theatre and storytelling to create a 3-D, audio-visual experience like no other”. The latest in virtual reality technology enables participants to enter a world where they can turn in their seat and watch a character walk all the way around them.
The show is being funded from the Hastings District Council’s city vibrancy fund. “It is about making sure a large number of our people have free access to a show, particularly one for our young people who might not have a concept of what is on offer. And it is adding life and colour to our city,” says Vibrancy project manager Raoul Oosterkamp.
Entry to the show is free and it is suitable for 12-year-olds and over.
Other free offerings from the festival include exhibitions and floor talks at the Hastings City Art Gallery; hosted walking tours of the public art in the Hastings and Napier city centres, and exhibitions at The Hastings Community Arts Centre (Arts Inc. Heretaunga) in Russell St.
For more on the story behind The Cube see: www.beyondthebrightblackedgeofnowhere.com
The Cube; Hastings city centre mall
Free; 10am to 8pm daily; October 11-16
Free: For more information see: www.hbaf.co.nz