Screen Cap of Dear Angelica, 2016, Courtesy of Wesley Allsbrook (Quill).
Magik Gallery makes a case for why VR is a viable medium for artists.
In the years since the art world began experimenting with VR in a major way, a mind-bending torrent of pioneering VR experiences have danced, wafted, and body-swapped their way into existence. As the the era of crazy experimentation in VR comes to an end, Magik Gallery curator Nick Ochoa sees his San Francisco showcase of artworks actually created inside virtual reality as part of the push to steer the medium toward staid gallery spaces and conventional materials.
“I look at Medium, Tilt Brush, Quill—they’re canvases. Just like linen or clay or wood,” Ochoa tells Creators. “It’s too often lumped together with the minutiae of the tech industry. It needs to get beyond that if we’re ever going to see people jump in and give a shit about virtual reality.”
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On the content creation side, companies are recruiting artists like Sougwen Chung, one of Google’s Tilt Brush Artists in Residence, to help shape these tools. For Chung, whose Tilt Brush works are an extension of earlier visual languages developed in multimedia installations, drawing, and sculpting, the lack of precedent contributes to VR’s appeal.
“In a way, the gestures become suspended in time, they become a spatial thought process,” she explains. “It’s a removal of the artist’s hand, but also an ephemeral engagement with the body, that often feels disembodied.”
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Source: Creators