RESET III and VIRTUAL REALITY

Category

Exhibition

Year

2017

Institution

Priska Pasquer, Cologne

Comment

With Virtual Reality (VR) a fundamental change is taking place in the digital age. Through the VR glasses people enter a new world instead of only looking at it on a flat screen. The human pursuit of immersion already demonstrated within the chambers of Egyptian pyramids, frescoed rooms of the Renaissance, or huge cinema walls is now seemingly fulfilled by virtual reality. A new era of the virtual space has begun.The exhibition RESET III and VIRTUAL REALITY illuminates the artistic exploration of virtual spaces against the background of the digital age. How do artists create virtual spaces? How do they compare to real environments? How does VR affect the body and perception? The RESET exhibition series initiated by PRISKA PASQUER deals with the development of art in the digital age in different artistic media. It examines how artists react to the challenges and possibilities of digital transformation.Meaning and definition of the virtual space are subject to constant change, and it is entering a new phase with the advent of today’s virtual reality technology. A virtual space is not only an illusionary space on a surface but an immersive world, revealed in Virtual Reality (VR). The difference is that with the VR-glasses or Head-Mounted Display (HMD), a person does not look at another world from the outside anymore but is located right in the middle of it. The viewer is the center of the environment and decides where to look or go. He senses proportions and perceives the virtual world three-dimensionally in the round.The artists presented in the exhibition RESET III and VIRTUAL REALITY deal with the production of space in the digital age in various media. This includes the virtual spaces of immersive interactive large-scale projections (Tamiko Thiel), performances and exhibitions in Second Life (Gazira Babeli and Patrick Lichty), or augmented Reality works that enrich the real space digitally over a screen (Banz & Bowinkel, Fiona Valentine Thomann). The exploration of virtual spaces in the mirror of the digital also takes place in all other contemporary media, e.g. sculpture (Claudia Larcher), mixed-media wall installations (Carla Mercedes Hihn, Judith Sönnicken) or painting and installation (Dominik Halmer). The exhibition presents VR artworks by Banz & Bowinkel, The Swan Collective, Fiona Valentine Thomann as well as the Digital Museum of Digital Art by Alfredo Salazar-Caro and William Robertson. It is a virtual reality museum, currently presenting the exhibition Morphé Presence, curated by Helena Acosta and Eileen Isagon Skyers, with works by Rosa Menkman, Brenna Murphy, Theo Triantafyllidis and Miyö Van Stenis.

• Banz&Bowinkel (Collective)