d o d g ' e m Dodg'em consisted of two adult sized pedal cars in which participants were required to drive themselves around an "empty" gallery space, triggering a spatial soundscape of an unseen terrain as they go. Although there were no physical or visual references to objects on the floor, there were many sonically suggested obstacles throughout the space, which were heard as the driver passed over/through them. As the driver continued to move about in their car, they eventually mapped out a mental construction of the spatial landscape, and were able to anticipate through memory, the various peculiar characteristics of the invisible realm. Through this blind interaction of driving or searching an unknown terrain, Dodg'em plays with two basic ideas: one being the idea of the car as a physical interface, an extension of our own bodies, interfacing between us and the physical environment, and two, the idea of the car being a more cognitive interface, translating the way we perceive the environment. Dodg'em suggests the comparison of browsing a museum/gallery space, to that of travelling as a tourist in a foreign place - both allowing a voyeuristic and somewhat unscathed view of the unknown or exotic. To further exemplify the idea of a car being an interface between one world and another is the stylistic nature of the pedal cars themselves. With their toy-like appearance of rounded anthropomorphic type form, they become an impotent kiddie version of a real car.
		This shift from the car as power symbol to object of infantile play makes the user feel more of an intruder into this world. The pedal car as a body extension/interface may then also serve a more perverse form of transportation, that of adult back to infant. The soundscape having almost no visual reference (apart from the catalogue 'map') acts as the disembodied residue of a nebulous world, mapping it into a collage of industrial, urban and domestic spaces. The obstacles, helping to exaggerate the fact that the user is not familiar to this place, that they are the 'Geijin' or 'Gringos' of this alternate world. That is to say that the user may be considered an outsider or outcast unfamiliar to the patterns and signifiers of this particular location. The aim of this piece was to exaggerate and subvert the conventional models of 'interactivity' (mouse and screen) by instead using a model of one of the most seamless interfaces of contemporary culture, the car. We take for granted how easily we perceive the space and shape of a car as an extension of our whole body, and once inside this 'exoskeleton' how we safely experience the world as an unfolding spectacle that glides past our view. Dodg'em also challenges the traditional role of the gallery space where usually the presence of static objects in a space, is the focus of attention. In this project, the space is empty, and the attention is not so much on the objects themselves (the peddle cars), but more on the absence of what is in the space. The gallery simply serves as a matrix in which to reveal that 'other place'.