The Unframed World
HEK (House of Electronic Arts), Basel, SwitzerlandCurator: Tina Sauerlaender
Artists: Li Alin (CAN/DE), Banz & Bowinkel (DE), Fragment.In (CH), Martha Hipley (US), Rindon Johnson (US), Marc Lee (CH), Mélodie Mousset & Naëm Baron (FR/CH), Rachel Rossin (US), Alfredo Salazar-Caro (US)
HEK, Basel
The Unframed World
Virtual Reality as artistic medium for the 21st century
"The Unframed World" is the first comprehensive presentation of artistic projects using the Virtual Reality medium at HeK.
In Virtual Reality the viewer overcomes the limited surface of a computer screen. Instead of looking through a window, the viewer exits real surroundings to become part of another world.
The Unframed World is the first comprehensive presentation of the artistic use of the VR medium at HeK (House of Electronic Arts Basel). The group exhibition presents various artistic approaches towards the medium that has been impacting many realms of life since mass-market VR technologies were launched in early 2016. These technologies will continue to significantly transform in the years and decades to come.
The artistic works in the exhibition convey the aesthetic potential of Virtual Reality and examine its role as a critical medium for reflection on states of being in the world today. The works addresses architecture and urbanity, bodily perception and physical laws, social issues, poetry, performance, gender and identity. In addition VR technologies such as HTC Vive, Oculus Rift and Google Cardboard will be introduced.
The desire of humanity to become immersed and to delve into new worlds has always been present—like the inner chambers of Egyptian pyramids, the frescoed rooms of the Renaissance, panoramas or vast cinema screens. Looking at a flat surface remains a passive experience for the viewer, ever aware of the limited screen and the real environment. In Virtual Reality, the beholder now perceives surroundings in a 360-degree all-round range in 3D from a personal point of view and explores them using a head-mounted display, a controller and body movement. As an active component and central point, the viewer or user moves around in the illusionary space and senses a self-presence as well as the proportions and dimensions of the surroundings. In the exhibition, the visitor becomes a part of virtual artworks, which are thereby lifted from the pedestal of sublime admiration and brought closer to the reality of the viewer's life.
The Unframed World: Virtual Reality as artistic medium for the 21st century introduces VR experiences by nine international artists that are embedded in their installations, projections, video works or sculptures in the exhibition space. The exhibition offers not only a virtual and immersive experience, but also a real and physical one.
Exhibited Artwork
10.000 Moving Cities - Same but Different, VR (Virtual Reality)
Interactive Net- and Telepresence-Based Installation10.000 Moving Cities - Same but Different deals with urbanization and globalization in the digital age. The user moves through visual worlds posted publicly by others on social networks such as YouTube, Flickr or Twitter. Here these personal impressions are streamed in real time like windows to our changing world. The viewer participates in the social movements of our time and makes a virtual journey more …
ZKM, Karlsruhe
NJPAC, Seoul
NJPAC, Seoul
Publication
DIE UNGERAHMTE WELT, THE UNFRAMED WORLD - Virtuelle Realität als künstlerisches Medium, Virtual Reality as Artistic Medium
Merian, Christoph Verlag, HeK (Haus der elektronischen Künste Basel)Book softcover, 96 pages, 63 colour illustrations, 17.5 x 24.5 cm
2017
Deutsch/English
Sabine Himmelsbach
ISBN 978-3-85616-850-6
https://hek.ch/en/program/exhibitions/die-ungerahmte-welt
Artistic positions using virtual reality technologies
New perspectives on the depiction of digital pictorial worlds
Essays from Bettina Back, Julia Kaganskiy, Patrick Lichty and Tina Sauerländer
The essays present the works from different research perspectives, thus enabling a broad overview of current trends in a media art based on virtual reality technologies.
The latest virtual-reality technologies are asserting themselves currently in the domain of the fine arts and facilitating an immersion in artificial worlds. Virtual reality is used not only to explore aes-thetic potential, but also as a critical medium for reflecting on the existential state of today’s life-world. The works presented in this publication deal with multifaceted themes, such as physical per-ception and physical laws, societal structures as well as architecture and poetry.
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