XYZ was commissioned by Site Gallery and is an augmented reality sculpture project, with sculptures generated by Sarah Staton and interpreted within virtual space by Chris Hodson. To view and experience these 3-dimensional virtual sculptures, you needed iPhone technology. After downloading the app (Junaio, in this case) and selecting the XYZ channel, you held the camera on your phone up to a black and white geometric image. Soon enough, the Junaio platform reinterprets reality, bringing the virtual into view.
In their own publicity material, Site Gallery question the material form of sculpture: "What happens to sculpture when it is rendered virtual? What do you gain and what do you lose? In virtual reality concrete can float, liquid can solidify, but the materiality of sculpture, the space it takes up in relation to bodies, its inherent gravity is gone". XYZ indeed raises some interesting questions about the nature of sculpture and of art itself. How do we judge an art form which is seemingly intangible?
Importantly, the tangibility of XYZ comes from the very corporeal act of the viewer / iPhone user - your act of bringing the art work into being itself is the tactile foundation of each sculpture. What I found interesting was the precariousness of manifesting the sculptures. Move your phone too quickly and they vanished; reach out to try to touch them (your hand blocking the motivating image) and they disappeared. Interestingly, this somehow made them precious. Intriguing and precious.
XYZ closed at Site Gallery last Saturday, but they've got lots of exciting things coming up... So Sheffield folk - keep an eye out and an ear to the ground!
2 comments:
An interesting concept. I question if this type of sculpture or anything so interactive really belongs in an art gallery.
It sounds like a great way to get people involved in art. It would have been really good to put the sculptures in streets or on billboards which would bring out the interactive nature of the works with people discovering them more organically.
I feel a bit left out as I'm not part of the i-phone revolution yet.
In fact, the geometric triggers were also in selected places round Sheffield: at the showroom, in the winter gardens. (Perhaps I should have mentioned this!) We did find a few... the problem in terms of stumbling across them and finding these organically is that you need to have already downloaded the app.
Site Gallery were lending people Ipod touches in the gallery itself.
Post a Comment