A collaboration between artists' group Blast Theory and the Mixed Reality Lab at the University of Nottingham, Desert Rain is an exciting and provocative work on the cutting edge of hybrid art practices. Defying easy definition, Desert Rain is at once a collaborative Virtual Reality game environment, an interactive art installation and new media performance, skilfully combining virtual worlds, video, installation and live interaction.

"The central artistic concern of Desert Rain is virtual warfare, the blurring of the boundaries between real and virtual events, especially with regard to the portrayal of warfare on television news, in Hollywood films and in computer games. Informed by Jean Baudrillard's assertion that the Gulf War did not actually take place because it was in fact a virtual event, both the content and the form of Desert Rain are designed to provoke participants to re-evaluate the boundaries between reality and fiction, and between the real and the virtual. As the players eventually discover, the targets they must find in the virtual world are six people who have quite different perspectives on the Gulf War."
Blast Theory
Desert Rain Publication 2002