Reviewed onThursday June 2
Right before commencing, one of the most buzzed-about and exciting Australian voices filling our ears of late, Kučka, declared to avid listeners at her Vivid Festival #Portals show that there would actually be no vocals performed during the evening.
A collaborative project with visual artist Rachael Archibald, #Portals took Kučka’s lesser-focused-on (but no less great) production skills and paired them with Archibald’s pastel virtual realities. It was so cohesive that you’d be hard-pressed to independently conclude that the two manifested the whole project largely online via Skype.
Marbled rock formations were projected onto a screen onstage, gliding around and melting into molten metal, as Kučka hid behind the screen with laptop in tow, conjuring a spatial, intergalactic hum. At this point, although early on, one thought came to mind: how long would we all be standing here, relatively stationary, watching this pseudo-virtual-reality? The question soon escaped us, however, with the beat and visuals switching up quickly so the mind didn’t linger in inactivity.
The immersive experience, with its surround sound set-up, started to find its focus when banal expressions like “Friday night, have nothing to wear” and “Trying to be an adult is so confusing” were read monotonously (and hilariously) by a robotic voice on loop, with strobe lights flashing across the room like paparazzi. The combination not only brought the audience back to a more tangible reality, but exemplified the show’s exploration of how technology is so present in human interactions.
Scattering natural and synthetic samples through the rest of the show, Kučka provided a textural balance between these all-consuming images and a measure of bass-filled, disruptive electronic beats – some of which will hopefully form the basis of any new vocal tracks from the lady herself.
As the show wrapped up with symbols bouncing across the screen and the pulsing sounds fading everything to black, #Portals concluded for what may be its first and only time – such is the nature of the quality projects, performances and collaborations Vivid has yet again brought to our city. As Nite Fleit moved into her post-#Portals set, a blanket of positivity extended across the room. Can Vivid just be year-round?
