Catalogue > Un extrait vidéo au hasard

“Still life” is an art-installation both physical - because it is composed of several AR sculptures made of ceramic, 3D printing, and other materials - and VR, because it is usable through oculus rift 3D viewer. “Still life” analyses the processes of nature by investigating the relation with it and what is represented in art nowadays as still life. The VR artwork puts in question what is really dead in nature and what is still alive in history of art, by speculating on landscapes, paintings and objects, and so creating through virtual reality an object-oriented space formed by a vibrant still-life environment designed all around the spectators. To design the vr artwork’s environment I used the techniques of photogrammetry and 3D scan objects, then I worked on manipulating the related maps/textures. The onlookers wearing the headset can touch the things ( i.e. food, flowers, fake dead animals, plants, rocks, shells, drinking glasses, books, vases, jewellery, coins, pipes, etc. ) in the still-life recreated by the real objects placed physically on situ. Audience can discover hidden senses by interacting with wired objects and new spaces of perception unfolding into diverse meanings. I make a sort of Duchampian détournement / decontextualization on the use of the vr medium itself, by designing immersive milieu in which, sometimes, the vr camera view angle is locked at 180°, 220°, or 310° instead of 360°. So, the onlooker is forced to peek/peep through the real space, into a reconstructed and resized immersive space sometimes semi-open or semi-closed, but made of wired geometric angles and futuristic views, playing with the concept of infinite including infinitely large, infinitely small, micro and macro dimensions, producing an unexpectable slide and shift of meaning. “Still life” is an experimental project, which challenges physical place to render it vibrant and participatory. It is through audience experience that “Still life” addresses us to the paradox of the modern space-time condition, even more diluted between physical and liquid space. “Still life” is part of a vr research project which I began in 2015 and which slots into my artistic journey since 1997, the fruit of a deep interest in space and how it is transformed and shaped “by” and “in” the language of informatics. In software and electronic devices, I find potential vehicles for the investigation and visualization of my research and theories. My “Still life” by investigating and analysing the ancient and fervid European Still Life art-practice, wants to keep alive its tradition across the magical ontology of the VR vision. In “Still life” I designed each piece to behave and move beyond its own functionality, according also to the Object Oriented Ontology philosophy.

Chiara Passa, visual artist (b. Rome 1973) working in media art since 1997. I graduated (M.F.A.) from the Fine Arts Academy of Rome, Master in audio-visual media at the Faculty of Modern Literature. After living in many different places I’m currently living and working around & in Rome. My artistic research analyses differences in virtual spaces through a variety of techniques technologies and devices - often using virtual reality and augmented reality technologies as an artistic medium to explore architecture as interface. I use VR and AR to comprise their intrinsic language and so on for shaking-up and challenging the static notion of architecture, by exploring the liminal duality between tangible and virtual place, achieving in art a strange oscillation between spaces. Yet, I work with animations, net-artworks, interactive and site-specific video-installations and AR / VR video-sculptures, sometimes made of Carrara marble, fresco technique, plexiglass, or 3D printing parts. Yet, I use VR medium in order to create site-specific video installations using a wide range of google cardboards. Typically, the 3D viewers are installed all over the real space, designing geometric shapes in liminal areas where onlookers can peek/peep thru 3D viewers over the wall, and so immerse themselves into a re-constructed/resized VR space made of wired geometric angles and futuristic views, sometimes semi-open or semi-closed at 180°, 220° or 360°, so highlighting the paradox of the modern space-time condition, which nowadays is even more diluted in between physical and liquid space. My work has been internationally exhibited from festivals, conferences, and institutions, including: 2019 «Object Oriented Space». Solo show at Museum MLAC Rome. «Virtual Natives – Sculpture», Roehrs & Boetsch gallery, Zurich (2019); «Oslo Night show», HEK Museum Basel (2018); «InSonic» immersive art show, ZKM | Center for Art and Media Museum, Karlsrhue (2017); «From live architecture: Dimensioning», solo show at Furtherfield gallery, London (2016); «Off Biennale Cairo» (2015-2016); «ISEA Disruption», Conference and exhibition at Vancouver Art Gallery. (2015); «Morphos», Vortex Dome - immersion media, Los Angeles (2014); Media Art Histories IV - RENEW conference, Riga. (2013). FILE | Electronic Language International Festival, São Paulo. (2011); Electrofringe - festival of new media art, Newcastle, Australia. (2008); BizArtCenter, Shangai (2005); MACRO – Museo di Arte Contemporanea, Roma (2004), 11° Biennale of young artists of Europe and the Mediterranean countries: «Cosmos - a sea of art», Athens. (2003); 48a Biennale di Venezia (with Oreste group), Venezia (1999) e Fondazione Bevilacqua La Masa, Venezia (1999).