Andy Chirali

Assume that the world is vastly complicated so we simplify it in our terms, terms learned from our parents and those around us which colour our thoughts and understanding. This assumption is the basis of ‘Mule Rider and the Stranger’, an audiovisual interactive installation which explores our interpretations of apparent reality through the lens of communication, language and myth.

The main focus, a parabolic narrative framed through the cowboy myth (a surreal revision of American exploits in the Old West), probes at interpersonal understanding and aspects of reality we necessarily reduce and distill into language. The projected telling of this story is available to be disrupted and altered by viewers, impacting the following viewers' encounters with the tale. When one person passes their unintentional ‘interpretation’ onto the next, will they seek to understand it in its original form?