Join us on SUNDAY NOVEMBER 5TH FROM 1 TO 4 PM SLT/PST in Second Life, for a gallery opening featuring the artists of VR Forward: Lisa Timpf, TWK Templar, L. X. Beckett, Yuan Changming, Debora Alanna, Chun Hua Catherine Dong, and JE Solo.
Artists utilizing Virtual and Augmented Reality platforms as workspaces create unique laboratories for experimentation, innovative sites for performance, and new places of contact. With technology quickly advancing, and online platforms ever rising and falling, Virtual Reality is volatile territory. Artists intrepidly navigate the boundaries of these virtual spaces, seeking to expand beyond them as they create new and exciting ways to experience art and the metaverse.
VR Forward explores poetry, art, and the poetics of space by bringing the work of Canadian artists into virtual reality spaces. The VR Forward Project opens their final exhibit this weekend in the online world of Second Life featuring the work of four Canadian poets and two Canadian media artists. This event is also a part of The Wrong Biennale – an independent, multicultural, decentralised and collaborative international art biennial. Please follow our Wrong Biennale pavilion on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/thespaceisvolatile/
The project is the result of a collaboration between the BBMC (a transdisciplinary artists collective), the House of Zolo (an independent Canadian publisher), and an array of Canadian artists, builders, and coders. The exhibit features documentation from the Virtual Reality projects that have been created throughout the year, and four installations that bring the work of Canadian poets to life with inventive and interesting virtual environments.
HOW TO ATTEND THE VR FORWARD OPENING IN SECOND LIFE:
The best way to attend events in virtual spaces is to enter the virtual world via your computer. In the case of Second Life, avatar accounts and software are free and accessible to both PC and Mac computers. If you are not already a user, visit Second Life to create an avatar, download the client, and enter the virtual world. Once you are in-world you can access the exhibit by entering this SLURL in the chat window and clicking it to teleport to the gallery. Please also feel free to email us at houseofzolopublishing@gmail.com if you have any questions or need more guidance.
http://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/Odyssey/31/50/24
If you are unable to attend the virtual event, stay tuned to BBMC’s Twitch Channel for streams and documentation; visit this and the BBMC and Odyssey websites, and follow our social media profiles for images, documentation, and news – HOZ on Instagram, HOZ on Facebook, HOZ on Twitter.
There are other VR Forward installations live in VR Chat, and the newly launched platform, Resonite. Both Resonite and VRChat are best experienced using a VR Headset, but both platforms also offer a good desktop screen interface for PC computers. There are currently two installations in VRChat and two in Resonite. These spaces are open and accessible, and here is how to see them.
In VR Chat
Starring You in the Role of the Fourth Rider is a unique world, built by TWKTemplar of BEEVR, that interprets L. X. Beckett‘s poem “Starring You in the Role of the Fourth Rider” as an immersive experience. This world brings the images and themes of the poem to life. Visitors encounter audio of the poem, read by the author, as they journey through an intimate, apocalypse-themed story to the centre of a black hole. Find it by searching “black hole experience” or “Starring You…” in the VRC Worlds Menu.
The Odyssey Gallery and Amphitheatre, by Mr. Ree, is a presentation space in VR Chat for showing visual art, media art, live performance and events. It features a number of gallery spaces, a video player, chill-out rooms, a path through the forest, and an amphitheatre. Visit Odyssey in VR Chat by searching “Odyssey” in the Worlds menu, and looking for the orange Odyssey logo in the world images. There are rotating exhibits in the gallery space and a series of machinimas and videos installed in the media player.
Useful Links for starting out in VR Chat:
In Resonite
Two worlds, The Poetrix and Under World by JE Solo, are installed on the newly launched Resonite platform.
Migrated from NEOS VR, Under World features Artificially Intelligent NPCs (Non Player Characters) – twin cyber whales who live in a virtual ocean in the online platform of Resonite. These underwater creatures compose their own unique songs in real time based on their interpretations of one of JE Solo’s original compositions.
The Poetrix is a virtual being that evolved from the development of JE Solo’s “Songstress” entity. The Poetrix was created through the use of quantum computers and incorporates machine learning to write short poems in the style of JE Solo’s song lyrics.
Both the Poetrix and the Cyber Whales are Meta-Creators – technology based entities that independently compose their own poems and sounds. Find these installations by searching for “Under World” and “Poetrix” in the Resonite Worlds Menu.
The Space is Volatile is the BBMC’s Pavilion at the 2023-2024 Wrong Biennale – running from November 1, 2023 to March 1, 2024. The pavilion features the work of VR Forward artists Debora Alanna, Chun Hua Catherine Dong, The House of Zolo, Lisa Timpf, TWK Templar, L. X. Beckett, Yuan Changming, as well as BBMC members and associates JE Solo, Nebulosus Severine, Alan Sondheim, Tina Pearson, Isabel Valverde, Artists of the Odyssey Simulator, and more.
The VR Forward Project by the BBMC, has been made possible thanks to the support of the Canada Council for the Arts | Conseil des arts du Canada and the support of the artists of the Odyssey Simulator.