Project Brief

Upfor Gallery presented as an immersive painting.

Description

Ascension (@Upfor) is a site-specific installation set within Upfor Gallery. Shown as part of the exhibition Electric Fields, visitors dawned an Oculus Rift virtual reality headset and were transported into a digital copy of Upfor.

Bathed in an oscillating synthetic light, the gallery is filled with gestural forms flowing upwards from the ground. Part white cube, part Roman Oculus (an "eye" in a building), it also contains a giant opening into the sky instead of a ceiling. As viewers glance upwards, following the direction of the curvy, elongated gestures, they slowly ascend into a void above the gallery where they are surrounded by a fervent field of shooting forms.

Ascension extended the experience of the algorithmic artworks on display in the physical gallery into a painterly virtual world. Before dawning the goggles, gallery visitors looked from a distance at works presented as framed prints and animations on screens. With the Oculus Rift headset on, they were enveloped by the same gestural forms depicted in the other works.

The soundtrack is a field recording made at Upfor during the exhibition; it captures a composition by Jefre Cantu-Ledesma that played in the gallery.

Ascension is available for personalized commissions through Upfor Gallery.

Exhibition History

Electric Fields at Upfor Gallery. Portland, OR. February 2015.

Project Specs

Format: Realtime software with virtual reality headset
Duration: Continuous
Year of Production: 2015

Tags

Upfor Gallery, virtual reality, immersion, gesture, digital gesture, Color Field painting, canvas, ascension, algorithmic, generative, openFrameworks, OpenGL

Stills