Roadside Picnic

“A picnic. Picture a forest, a country road, a meadow. Cars drive off the country road into the meadow, a group of young people get out carrying bottles, baskets of food, transistor radios, and cameras. They light fires, pitch tents, turn on the music. In the morning they leave. The animals, birds, and insects that watched in horror through the long night creep out from their hiding places. And what do they see? Old spark plugs and old filters strewn around... Rags, burnt-out bulbs, and a monkey wrench left behind... And of course, the usual mess—apple cores, candy wrappers, charred remains of the campfire, cans, bottles, somebody’s handkerchief, somebody’s penknife, torn newspapers, coins, faded flowers picked in another meadow.” Roadside Picnic, Boris & Arkady Strugatsky, 1972

Taken from the science fiction novel of the same name, Roadside Picnic draws on the book’s notion of ‘the zone’, a restricted area contaminated with unearthly technology. A place where psychic and physical anomalies challenge our understanding of time and space, populated with hallucinatory phantoms, strange and dangerous phenomena and littered with artefacts manifesting inexplicable, seemingly supernatural properties. Places and things not fully understood. Similarly, the places, objects and agencies that appear in the show feel at times like chance discoveries, finds or excavations. More fragments of another time and space than creations or artworks from this.

Over a period of four months students and staff from across the RCA’s School of Communication have begun to explore the vast creative possibilities and complexities offered by Unreal Engine, advanced imaging software developed by Epic to create interactive, real-time 3D and Cinematic work.

The exhibition features work in progress from Unreal Communication, a research project within the Royal College of Art's School of Communication. 

Participating in Unreal Communication are: Claire Breach, Savyna Darby, Udit Datta, Tianwen Dong, Krishnan Ghosh K, Xanthe Horner, Shan Huang, Yueh Huang, Anupama S Iyer, Amir B Jahanbin, Wenhui Jiang, Halim Lais, Matt Lewis, Luke Pendrell, Ke Peng, Kam Raoofi, Aiden Shabka, Shyama V S, Joseph Whitmore, Yiru Yan 

Weihang Zhu, and Shahwali Shayan

Supported by Epic Games' MegaGrant Programme.

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The exhibition takes place at Cromwell Place, South Kensington 17 - 19th June. 

Friday – Saturday 10am – 6pm, Sunday 10am – 4pm

Cromwell Place, 4 Cromwell Pl, South Kensington, 

London SW7 2JE