“Art acts as cultural radar, an early alarm system for the development of media.” Marshall McLuhan, Understanding Media
The development of Augmented and Virtual Reality (often referred to as Mixed Reality) is still in the “tools” stage. There isn’t much in the way of content, as the tools to create those experiences are just reaching the hands of artists who make the magic. Apple just released its SDK (Software Developer Kit) for ARKit, a technology that will accompany the release of the iPhone 8 and iOs 11 in the fall. AR today is primitive. Snapchat Filters and Pokemon Go are its best-known applications. VR, meanwhile, is dominated by primitive systems Google Cardboard and Samsung GearVR (they represent about 75% of consumer VR devices), whose principal content is low-resolution 360 videos.
Within these limitations, artists are using the tools at hand to create compelling experiences which foreshadow the enhanced digital world about to unfold. The VR Society, a non-profit organization created by major Hollywood studios and top technology companies to advance the arts of VR and AR recently presented The Art of AR at Sotheby’s New York, June 22 & 23rd. The two-day conference featured technology demonstrations, experiences, and entertainment exhibits spread across several floors of galleries. Upstairs, the VR Society presented panels in the main hall where sheiks and moguls bid ten of millions for the world’s most sought after 2D art. Here’s the thing that struck me: art and technology were the most interesting part. The commercial applications, which included a VR experiences based on the “Alien” and “Spiderman” movies were less exciting. It is great to see big media companies investing in this new medium, but their goal is hardly art, it’s the expansion of their most important franchises. By the way, the value of movie franchises to Virtual Reality cannot be understated. People know what to do there.
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“Raising A Ruckus” is available in the Oculus Store for the Rift and GearVR.
The Virtual Reality Company (VRC), a content studio and production company founded in 2014 by Hollywood veterans including two-time Oscar winner Robert Stromberg (Production Design on “Avatar”), who directed “The Martian VR Experience” for 20th Century Fox Innovation Labs last year. VRC occupied a large gallery which they filled with production art and a dozen seated VR stations to present its newest immersive production, a beautifully animated short, “Raising a Ruckus”, $3.99 in the Oculus store. You have great presence inside the world of the narrative, though no agency to move or affect the action yourself. You’re the camera on a roller coaster ride of tracking shots and swirling effects. “We are in the early days of unlocking the power of this new medium,” said Stromberg. “It’s similar to my time working on Avatar, VRC is in a constant state of invention and innovation, testing and pushing the artistic, storytelling and technical potential of VR.” The company recently announced a partnership with IMAX to make “Raising a Ruckus” available at its IMAX VR centers in LA, and New York City.
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Jane Lafarge Hamill is best known for her abstract oil paintings. She’s represented by prestigious New York art gallery FMLY. Lately, she’s been working in virtual reality, and not for money, or marketing, or fame, or any mundane reason. “I simply want to walk into one of my paintings,” Hamill says. The viewer’s entry begins before they even put on the headset, by facing the physical paintings across the room. Then, headset on, they see a scan of the same piece at the same size. “It’s important to me that the viewer begins with a real object; having the actual painting there before they put the headset on and see its simulacra, is a subtle but integral part. This grounds it in Reality.” The viewer then walks through the surface of the painting, which deconstructs around you.
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Jane Hamill’s VR piece “Wavering Calm” lets you walk inside her painting.
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Source: Forbes