Introduction to a New World of Art
The 12 months 2020 was a difficult time for the art industry. With museums and galleries shutting down and events like Black Rock City getting cancelled, art enthusiasts felt a scarcity of creative experiences around them. However, this crisis sparked a renewed interest in digital art. Our technological devices became the means to enter alternate realities, constructed using pixels. These digitally sculpted environments provided an interactive and immersive landscape to experience art in a protected and social atmosphere again.
The Concept of Timekeepers
One such world, exclusively created for the primary virtual burn as a part of BRCvr, is named "Timekeepers". It’s a social virtual reality art installation hosted throughout the AltspaceVR ecosystem and dictated by traditional symbols of timekeeping. "Timekeepers" has been joined by greater than 3,000 unique visitors because it was first exhibited in September 2020.
Understanding Time
Time is elusive, and its nature is commonly taken with no consideration. The pandemic became some extent of departure to query the perception of time. The entanglement of fear, anxiety, anticipation, doubts, and uncertainty further desynchronized the interior and external perception of time. This moment of enigma left many grappling for something greater than just the lived experience.
The Inspiration Behind Timekeepers
During a brand new media residency at Mana Contemporary, an ancient Roman figure, Janus, was excavated. Janus is a two-faced God, considered a guardian of doorways, transitions, and time. Its one head looks back prior to now, and the opposite looks into the longer term. They are glued together at some extent of transition, which defines the current moment. A digitally constructed, computer-aided study of Janus became an instrument to critique the phenomenon of temporality and face the mysterious nature of time.
A Study on Janus
In collaboration with Chicago-based artist Phil Mulliken, a reinterpretation of Janus as a digital sculpture was proposed. The two heads were drawn apart and faced one another to confront the past with the longer term. The present moment was exaggerated with a twisted entanglement of the 2 heads to indicate the unending drag created by the breakdown of social, political, and cultural structures through the pandemic. This reimagined Janus sculpture transcended right into a corporeal form when it became the inspiration for "Timekeepers".
Design and Execution
"Timekeepers" was designed keeping in mind the duality resonated by the phenomenon of temporality. The virtual world featured a mammoth Janus sculpture held in place by an architectural scaffolding, where participants could rest and socialize. This allowed them to intimately experience the digital sculpture in a social atmosphere that led to a discovery of recent meanings behind the unique work. An underground bunker with 360-degree viewing rooms immersed participants into infinite timescapes developed using custom algorithms, which manipulated digital pixels in real-time.
Events and Interactions
"Timekeepers" became a site to program a lot of public events, starting from artist talks, discursive meditations, and music events, to create a highly interactive, social, and fascinating environment. This is where the creator met Andreas Berlind, an Astrophysicist from Vanderbilt University, who was visiting Burning Man through the comfort of his VR headset. Since then, he has turn into a scientific mentor in real life, guiding the creator on their creative inquiries on space and time.
Conclusion
"Timekeepers" has been transformed right into a technological relic that’s permanently stored on the AltspaceVR servers. Occasionally, it gets restored and updated with the affordances of the medium it was created with, and opens its doors for special events and programs in coordination with BRCvr. For the creator, it is a social space to impress and share conversations about deconstructing our on a regular basis understanding of time. The virtual reality experience of "Timekeepers" continues to encourage and intrigue visitors, offering a novel perspective on the concept of time and its significance in our lives.
