NVA Organisation present 
For three monumental days in April, the cobbled expanse
of Glasgow's Old Fruitmarket was transformed into a vast, pulsating, techni-coloured,
techno-saturated, audio-visual arena ... literally playing host to the world.
Images, sounds and text from representatives of over 160 countries (more than
half the countries in the world), ranging from Iceland to Mongolia, careered
through the internet, packaged by Locofoco and Tomato (the indefatigably hip
Soho design collective), and were blasted onto sculptor (and gyneacologist!)
Dr. Graeme Tydeman's awesome configurations of screens - suspended, surrounding
and shifting around this epic event. A spectacular digital montage of global
life, VIRTUAL WORLD ORCHESTRA (VWO) was theatre company NVA's (Nacionale Vita
Activa's) bid to make sense of that which unites and divides humanity, and
fittingly crossed all boundaries - national, cultural, political, even generic,
as the evening hurtled from clubland to installation art, from concert to
performance art. For three nights and into the small hours, a live audience
and a potential 30 million viewers worldwide watched the simultaneous internet
and m-bone broadcasts, embarked on a multi-layered voyage through the rich
diversity of global life and became a part of the first genuinely global internet
event. Added to all this,was live Betacam mixing onto mutiple moving screens,
aerial staging, quadrophonic sound, robotics, mass drumming, individual performances
and DJ's mixing sound sequences from 'found sounds' provided by an international
bevvy of musicians,and produced at nva's
digital recording studio-one
over infinity.
VWO proved to be as unparalleled as it was unprecedented.
A team of maverick artists from around the world appeared live and included:
