Gazelli has become a significant platform championing non-traditional genre such as virtual reality since the 2015 launch of the popular and annual series “Enter Through the Headset (ETTH)” (Gazell Art House, 2020).

 

The visit

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I know that I want to create something moving that connects with my painting. Fascinated by the connection and the blurring of the boundaries between the real and the virtual space, various fields of such an expression open up. Since I was torn between VR, AR and projections, it was important for me to experience the works of current artists in each field.

Before this visit, I was first immersed in a virtual reality during my design studies and rather in a small and provisional setting. The Gazell.io Virtual Reality Library therefore offered a wide range of current VR and also displayed traditional painting that deals with the digital.

During my visit I noticed how difficult it is to exhibit completely virtual art in a spatial gallery. The virtual gallery was a small extra room that only the instructor and I could sit and stand in, with a white wall and a marker on the floor. The main surface of the gallery was still physical works.

While I try to describe my impressions, I notice how unusual it is to describe what I have seen without having reference photos of it. I'm so used to being able to capture everything I see on my smart phone that it feels strange just to write about the memory of the event. What I try to explain becomes difficult to access to the reader.

 

Realizations and Findings for my future work

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Mediation of VR in real space

How can such a work of art be conveyed before entering the virtual space? Can virtual art be exhibited in one space at all or should it be made accessible everywhere?

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Attention and movement

I found that I stayed much longer in rooms where a lot was happening, where there was a lot that I could visually consume. In contrast, the rooms with less movement did not hold my attention for long. Three of the rooms offered the possibility to move around with the controller in hand. However, it was rather stressful to steer back and forth this way. I found myself testing the limits of animation rather than actually being in the scene mentally. Can I fall down the cliff here? For how long can I run in one direction? To stand still and yet be in motion with all my other senses was a new experience for me. I became more immersed in spaces where things moved around me while I was standing still and where movement was taking place no matter which way I looked.

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Feeling detached

I found during this visit that I wasn't completely comfortable with the VR gallery setup. I felt disconnected to my real life surrounding and at the same time was standing in a room with someone watching me - of course only to offer help if needed, but it was still an uncomfortable feeling.

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Dizziness

In the beautiful surreal rooms that showed no floor and in which I was floating, my perception was overloaded after a short time and I felt a bit dizzy and nauseous. The headset was heavy and the glasses fogged up internally from my breath under the mask, which may have increased the effect. However, the supervisor pointed out to me that many visitors eventually get sick and therefore usually have to sit down. This is another aspect that made me move away from the idea of creating a VR space.

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Sharing and Exchanging

Some rooms reflected human interaction, like dancing or opening doors to different rooms full of people. One room described a colorful party scene in a club full of dancing figures whose bodies were 2-dimensional and which I floated past. I enjoyed spending time there and almost started to dance along. I would have liked to share my visual experience with someone or be in the VR-room with someone. It struck me how important it is for me to exchange what I see and that I want to enable this in my works at the moment of viewing, which brings me more in the direction of projection or video.

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