"Megalith Teleport International" - Robbie Thomson x Alicia Matthews x WAFT Lab

Standing stones are the most enduring creative expressions of early societies; records held in the rocks and the land, and built during a revolutionary period of agricultural innovation. Megalith Teleport International is a collaboration between artists based in Scotland and Indonesia, two archipelagos sharing a rich heritage of megalithic sites, which were central to ancient spiritual practices, astronomy and social cohesion. We embarked on this project with the intention of exploring how contemporary ideas around technology, community and communication could be applied to these sites, and how we could create virtual links between physical spaces over the internet.

Our collaboration has it’s roots in 2016 when Twis and Robbie shared a stage at Taman Budaya Jawa Timur in Surabaya as part of a British Council tour of Robbie’s Tesla Coil performance, XFRMR. The following year, Twis attended a residency at Cove Park in Scotland, hosted by Cryptic, he also performed in Glasgow at a TLC Soundsystem club night organised by Robbie and Alicia. We kept in contact and were successful in applying to British Council for funding to create Proyek 2-Tak, our first major collaboration. Robbie spent a  month with Helmi, Twis and the other members of WAFT-LAB in Surabaya converting a 1990 Mitsubishi Delica van into a vehicle that could be used as a base for touring arts workshops. By this stage we were well acquainted and so jumped at the opportunity to work together again by applying to Connections Through Culture.

Our initial Zoom conversations centred around identifying the sites and technologies that we each wanted to explore. Robbie and Alicia are based on the Isle of Lewis, home to the Calanais Stones which are understood to have functioned as an ancient lunar calendar. Twis and Helmi zoned in on Wisata Batu So’on in Bondowoso, an extensive complex of trilithon structures similar in form to Stonehenge. We approached the technological aspect of the work with a view to creating a telepresent, digital version of these places that we could share with each other (and ultimately, an audience) that played with the mysterious and mystical overtones of the sites themselves and our speculations as to their prior functions.

The project was an opportunity to experiment with techniques such as photogrammerty, which was used to create 3D models of the Calanais III site. This involves making a large photo survey of the area and using software to interpolate how the photos mesh together. Our virtual stone circle could then be augmented in Touchdesigner to create an evolving digital experience. We played with various delivery methods for this such as 360 video and a simple Unity game.