Are you feeling stressed about the end of the world? If yes, you might want head to this Next Wave event. An immersive live art experience incorporating VR technology, Bureau of Meteoranxiety by Perth-based artists Alex Tate and Olivia Tartaglia will allow participants to work through their fears of climate change by exposing them to “experimental visual therapies and sensory remedies” and providing “new language and coping strategies to help stay above the metaphorical and literal flood line”.Bookings essential.
Olivia Tartaglia and Alex Tate are emerging artists from Perth, Western Australia, exploring futurism, ecotechnology, and the Anthropocene through collaborative interactive installations.
Participants in the bureau’s “wellness trial” start by filling out a questionnaire to assess their level of “meteoranxiety”.
They then watch a video from Australian philosopher Glenn Albrecht, who coined the term meteoranxiety as “the specific anxiety that people feel when their climate and the weather … becomes so abnormal as to give them a sense of foreboding that the future is going to be more difficult than the present; that the next storm is going to wipe them out”.
But the bureau’s proposed treatments may seem a little counterintuitive. There’s a guided meditation that starts off soothingly and escalates into an unusual weather event; an AI chatbot called Gail, who delivers online counselling; a shared online journal to help patients feel less alone with their meteoranxiety; and a three-minute virtual reality simulation of a rainforest which eventually leads the patient to touch a 3D-printed log, giving them a therapeutic dose of “nature”.
This has been funded by Australian (Government) Council for the Arts, WA Dept of Culture, and more.
http://www.blindside.org.au/bureau-of-meteoranxiety/https://www.theage.com.au/entertainment/theatre/bureau-of-meteoranxiety-is-here-to-address-your-climate-stress-20180510-p4zej0.html