InterAccess Toronto presents Trivial Pursuits: Mass Distraction, the 9th Annual Emerging Artist Exhibition, opening on July 10th. Six Canadian artists trivially navigate their quasi-virtual existences: Roja Aslani, Erin Gee, David Han, Beatriz Herrera, Steve Shaddick, and Blake Williams. Trivial Pursuits focuses on the phenomena of digital distraction in new media art. Blake Williams’ Hotel Video projection portrays the dreamlike slippage between the interior and exterior. Beatriz Herrera’s blue-faced, walking, talking hexapod Trivia Monster robot blurts useless information in user presence. Meanwhile, Erin Gee’s Formants, a double-headed interactive sound sculpture, asks viewers to play. Combing of the hair on each head triggers operatic feedback, invoking strangeness about gendered technological desires. Roja Aslani’s autonomous self-inflating Breathing Wardrobe and Steve Shaddick’s repeatedly crashing interactive video, Restart, withholds efficient pre-visualization that interactive users are commonly accustomed to. An infinite regress of manipulated self imagery, David Han’s Glass Looking Through is a site-specific installation posing as a dysfunctional interactive mirror. A viewer’s presence triggers audio-visual feedback that eventually degenerates irrationally.