Aurora Australis Ultimo Choro

• Published in: SIGGRAPH Asia 2021 Art Gallery
• Main Authors: McCormick, John, Nash, Adam, Jeal, Stephen, Vincs, Kim
• Other Authors: Swinburne University of Technology
• Format: Conference Object
• Language: unknown
• Published: Association for Computing Machinery (ACM) 2021
• Subjects: Antarctic; McCormick; Nash; The Antarctic; Antarc*; Antarctica; aurora australis; Australian Antarctic Division; Icebreaker
• Online Access: http://hdl.handle.net/1959.3/466426; https://doi.org/10.1145/3476123.3487883

Aurora Australis Ultimo Choro depicts the final Australian voyage of the RSV Aurora Australis to the Antarctic continent. The Aurora Australis has been carrying expeditioners and resupply to Antarctica for over 30 years. This final voyage was special in many ways. It departed with COVTD-19 just a whisper and returned to a fundamentally changed world. The extra protocols instituted on the ship in response to COVID-19 reinforced the interdependency and collaborative actions of such a tightly knit microcosm, already essential for survival in Antarctica, but with a renewed sense of urgency in the emerging emergency. At that time Antarctica became the last COVID-19 free continent and we had a duty to preserve that status. Using laser and photogrammetry scans and ambisonic sound recordings of the ship, crew and expeditioners, Aurora Australis Ultimo Choro presents a VR experience depicting the intricate choreography of ship and expeditioners. Using an artistic rendering of the ship along with choreographed impressions of the crew and expeditioners, Aurora Australis Ultimo Choro portrays the final voyage as an intricate dance sustaining life. Aurora Australis Ultimo Choro is an immersive visual and sonic feast of three-dimensional environments and spatial sound visualising and sonifying the last grand Antarctic dance of the Aurora Australis, crew and expeditioners. John McCormick and Adam Nash (Wild System) were the 2020 Australian Antarctic Arts Fellows on the final Australian voyage of the icebreaker Aurora Australis to the Antarctic continent. The artists would like to acknowledge the generous support of the Australian Antarctic Division, Australian Network for Art and Technology, Swinburne University, RMIT University and Stephen Jeal.