A Drone Opera viscerally explores the rapidly developing technology of unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs), colloquially known as drones, and their social and cultural impact. Artist Matthew Sleeth directs an experimental multimedia performance featuring drones, their pilots and opera singers, combined with a new sound score, laser light design and moving image.
Feeling the drones’ air displacement and hearing their rotor sound, audiences will experience this robotic technology first hand, shifting their knowledge of drones from political abstraction into embodied experience in time and space. Curious about their potential to re-shape our world, Sleeth has designed, built and programmed customised drones specifically for the performance context.
Sleeth’s largest work to date, A Drone Opera also features an inspiring line-up of collaborators, including experimental artists Kate Richards, Robin Fox, Phil Samartzis and Susan Frykberg, lighting designer Bosco Shaw and choreographer Shelley Lasica.
‘A Drone Opera’ is commissioned by Experimenta. Supported by the Australian Government through the Australia Council, its arts funding and advisory body.
