I have also started work on recreating the space our L6 Photography students intend to hire for their graduate show as part of the free Range showcase exhibitions in London in June...
Thursday, 27 September 2018
Student Showcase Gallery and Recreation of Graduate Exhibition Space
The showcase gallery is starting to take shape.... The big news is I have managed to hide the gun so now the viewer can gently scroll/walk through and not have to teleport everywhere which helps to maintain the immersive experience.
I have also started work on recreating the space our L6 Photography students intend to hire for their graduate show as part of the free Range showcase exhibitions in London in June...
I have also started work on recreating the space our L6 Photography students intend to hire for their graduate show as part of the free Range showcase exhibitions in London in June...
Thursday, 20 September 2018
More Experiments...
One of my first aims is to produce a VR showcase gallery that shows off some of the best work from our past and present students. Initial ideas and test are looking good and performing well. I am having some problems creating realistic shadows under the frames, which I think is down to the walls transmitting light rather than reflecting it. still learning.
I am still having some movement issues as I do not like the teleport system that came with the initial platform template. However, expert support is not too far away and should help me overcome these issues soon.
If you are reading this blog and feel you can add something to my research then please comment… even if you are correcting me or don’t agree with something that I say.
I am still having some movement issues as I do not like the teleport system that came with the initial platform template. However, expert support is not too far away and should help me overcome these issues soon.
If you are reading this blog and feel you can add something to my research then please comment… even if you are correcting me or don’t agree with something that I say.
Thank you Beulah and Ben.
This project would not have begun had I not had an introduction to the technology and its possibilities from two students, Ben Thornhill and Beulah Royds. They have both now graduated with media and fine art degrees. Beulah has kindly sent me some screen grabs and artist statement for her final major project that utilised VR technology...
My project aims to highlight the importance of researching VR now as, with it being an art form whilst also being the next step in interactive technology and currently it is in its infant stages, it is such a versatile technology that can only get better and more advanced with the passing years, having clear ideas now about what we could (as artists, and scientists) achieve will give us a head start in the industry and lead to possibly life-changing creations.
From a research point of view, it is important to look into this now because it has so many uses in everything from science (through its ability to create perfect life-like controlled scenarios with which to observe human behaviour, much like how this study aims to do) to art where artists can create pieces on a scale not yet seen that can be experienced from start to finish by individuals from around the world simultaneously without lengthy setup/reset times or massive travel expenses. VR also means that in the long run waste material could potentially be minimised as it won’t be necessary to use up scarce materials for large works of art as they can all be created digitally.
Beulah Royds
Thanks for you help guys. Your input helped me to secure the funding for this research.
My project aims to highlight the importance of researching VR now as, with it being an art form whilst also being the next step in interactive technology and currently it is in its infant stages, it is such a versatile technology that can only get better and more advanced with the passing years, having clear ideas now about what we could (as artists, and scientists) achieve will give us a head start in the industry and lead to possibly life-changing creations.
From a research point of view, it is important to look into this now because it has so many uses in everything from science (through its ability to create perfect life-like controlled scenarios with which to observe human behaviour, much like how this study aims to do) to art where artists can create pieces on a scale not yet seen that can be experienced from start to finish by individuals from around the world simultaneously without lengthy setup/reset times or massive travel expenses. VR also means that in the long run waste material could potentially be minimised as it won’t be necessary to use up scarce materials for large works of art as they can all be created digitally.
Beulah Royds
Thanks for you help guys. Your input helped me to secure the funding for this research.
Sunday, 16 September 2018
Initial Test Spaces
I am slowly learning to use Unreal Engine and I have had some successes and some failures. So far, the biggest problems for me have been caused by using Unreal templates. I like the movement in the first-person template, but it comes holding a gun! I like the movement in the third-person template, but it (obviously) means that you end up following a humanoid character around the gallery. I like the hands in the VR first-person teleport template, but I don't like the teleport movement. I thought it would be fairly easy to edit the characters and movement systems, but I still have a lot to learn.
Using Unreal to actually design gallery spaces is so far proving to be more successful. I have sorted out the initial lighting issues and apart from reflective/matte issues that either make the art work appear flat or too reflective, have produced some acceptable architecture. The images on the walls are from the B&FC BA Photography course's image library.
Here are some examples of my progress...
My aim at this point is to create a VR exhibition/showcase of our recent graduates works, but it will only be for 2D paintings, photographs and designs until I have usable 3D models and successful photogrammetry models (I am looking at collaborating with students to produce these) and then I can include fashion an sculpture.
If you are reading this blog and feel you can add something to my research then please comment… even if you are correcting me or don’t agree with something that I say.
Saturday, 15 September 2018
Why is Scale so Important?
At this point I feel I need to discuss the reasons why scale is so important in art. However, I have still yet to find and read a definitive text on the subject. So I thought that I would layout my (educated) thoughts first and follow them with links to articles that generally support them. I have also copied and pasted useful descriptions and quotes as I have found them (no point in rewriting everything for this blog).
In the context of this project, when we talk about scale we actually mean the size of art works in relation to us, the viewer (the human). I freely admit that this project is asking these questions about large scale works and is tending to ignore miniature works (at this point), which I am classing as anything smaller than A4 in size, which happens to be the size of most of the sketchbooks sold in B&FCs art shop.
Scale is rarely considered as a/the dominant aesthetic element in an artwork by the vast majority of gallery visitors, who may be in awe of the realness, expressiveness and brush strokes within a painting but somehow miss the significance the size of the work has on their experience, even if it is affecting the way they are viewing it. Eli Anapur discusses scale as the ‘dominant element of the artworks’ aesthetics’ in this article for Widewalls [ https://www.widewalls.ch/scale-in-art/ ]. He looks at both large and miniature pieces.
Some statements to consider...
An easy-to-digest illustration of how scale works in relation to the gallery visitor can be found in David by Michelangelo displayed at the Galleria dell'Accademia, Florence, Italy. It raises the questions - would this statue have the same impact? would it give the viewer the same experience? Would it be as famous? - if it was life sized or smaller?
Michelangelo, David
The experience of viewing it in person is something that should not be underestimated, and I very much doubt that more than a couple of my students have seen it in the flesh (if indeed, any). [ https://www.sophia.org/tutorials/design-in-art-scale-and-proportion ]
Jeff Wall is a contemporary artist (photographer) who places great significance on the scale of his work and the viewing experience.
The Giant 1992 (transparency in lightbox 45cm x 59cm)
Wall's The Giant is a fairly small piece at about A2 in size but the content has distinct similarities to David (or at least installation photographs of the sculpture), and is possibly descriptive of this whole project… to mock up and test the scale of works in relation to the viewer and surrounding space.
The White Cube’s website [ http://whitecube.com/artists/artist/jeff_wall ] describes… ‘Jeff Wall is renowned for large-format photographs with subject matter that ranges from mundane corners of the urban environment to elaborate tableaux that take on the scale and complexity of nineteenth-century history paintings.’... ‘Wall calls his photographs, after Charles Baudelaire, ‘prose poems’, a description that emphasises how each picture should be experienced rather than used to illustrate a predetermined idea or a specific narrative.’ (Anon)
Jeff Wall, Dead Troops Talk (417cm x 229cm)
Jeff Wall, Steves Farm, Steveston 1980 (Transparency in lightbox, 58cm x 229 cm)
The Museum of Contemporary Art tells us that ‘Wall’s primary desire ‘was to push photography closer to painting’...In works such as Steve’s Farm, Stevenston ’wall imparts a sense of “old master” scale to his landscapes ; using a very large panoramic format - approximately two feet by eight feet - he obtains a painting-like scale the fully holds the wall’ (Koshalek, R in Brougher, K. and Wall, J. (1997). Jeff Wall. Los Angeles, CA: Museum of Contemporary Art.).
In this [ http://www.museomagazine.com/JEFF-WALL ] interesting interview with David Shapiro, Wall talks about ‘monumental photography’ as being a relatively recent phenomenon, breaking out of the documentary/book model that fine art photography was generally based on up to the 70s. He describes how experimentation has led to this style of presentation and that ‘Photography’s gotten a lot bigger in the last ten or twelve years, because it’s become a known thing that a photograph can look great at that scale’. The article alludes to Gursky and Tillmans..
Andreas Gursky is an artist who is hard to ignore when it comes to scale. His hyper-real photographs entice the viewer into the image. Initially from a distance, one is attracted by his super formal aesthetic and secondly, by the fantastic detail captured by his large format camera almost to the point where your nose touches it. The size of the work allows the viewer to investigate details that would be lost if it was printed at a smaller size.
[ http://www.andreasgursky.com/en ]
Gursky, Montparnasse (354cm x 149cm)
Gursky, Montparnasse (detail)
Gursky, Montparnasse (closer detail)
Claes Oldenburg and Jeff Koons use large scale aesthetic in their work. The work that is useful to us are large sculptural pieces that scale up ordinary, mundane objects from daily life, or in Koons' case, up-scaled (massively!) versions of balloon animals.
When Bigger Is Better: Claes Oldenburg...
http://articles.latimes.com/1995-07-02/entertainment/ca-19310_1_claes-oldenburg
Claes Oldenburg
Jeff Koons….
http://www.jeffkoons.com/
Jeff Koons, Balloon Dog
Jeff Koons is the current holder of the record for the highest price paid for a work by a living artist for Balloon Dog (Orange). Which leads us on nicely to...
It is arguable that there is a direct correlation between the ‘aura’ of a great work of art and its monetary value (I can’t remember where I read about it at this point). With this in mind, we can look to Sotherby’s international auction house, to see what they have to say about the size of art works and the value of a piece. This video is one of a series of 10 that discuss different valuation criteria. And yes, the conclusion is that size does affect value.
I will revisit Koons, Gursky and Oldenburg at a later date.
If you are reading this blog and feel you can add something to my research then please comment… even if you are correcting me or don’t agree with something that I say.
In the context of this project, when we talk about scale we actually mean the size of art works in relation to us, the viewer (the human). I freely admit that this project is asking these questions about large scale works and is tending to ignore miniature works (at this point), which I am classing as anything smaller than A4 in size, which happens to be the size of most of the sketchbooks sold in B&FCs art shop.
Scale is rarely considered as a/the dominant aesthetic element in an artwork by the vast majority of gallery visitors, who may be in awe of the realness, expressiveness and brush strokes within a painting but somehow miss the significance the size of the work has on their experience, even if it is affecting the way they are viewing it. Eli Anapur discusses scale as the ‘dominant element of the artworks’ aesthetics’ in this article for Widewalls [ https://www.widewalls.ch/scale-in-art/ ]. He looks at both large and miniature pieces.
Some statements to consider...
- The size of a work can increase its authority as a valuable (but not necessarily monetary value) object in the eyes of a viewer.
- Large scale works ask the viewer to question their own significance in relation to the piece. It asks them to think about their part in the viewing experience.
- Historically, large scale art was only seen in religious or public buildings, which themselves were vast architectures and the experience of visiting them added to the significance of the imagery. This seems to have left us with a cultural legacy that still affects our viewing experience today (arguably).
An easy-to-digest illustration of how scale works in relation to the gallery visitor can be found in David by Michelangelo displayed at the Galleria dell'Accademia, Florence, Italy. It raises the questions - would this statue have the same impact? would it give the viewer the same experience? Would it be as famous? - if it was life sized or smaller?
Michelangelo, David
The experience of viewing it in person is something that should not be underestimated, and I very much doubt that more than a couple of my students have seen it in the flesh (if indeed, any). [ https://www.sophia.org/tutorials/design-in-art-scale-and-proportion ]
Jeff Wall is a contemporary artist (photographer) who places great significance on the scale of his work and the viewing experience.
The Giant 1992 (transparency in lightbox 45cm x 59cm)
Wall's The Giant is a fairly small piece at about A2 in size but the content has distinct similarities to David (or at least installation photographs of the sculpture), and is possibly descriptive of this whole project… to mock up and test the scale of works in relation to the viewer and surrounding space.
The White Cube’s website [ http://whitecube.com/artists/artist/jeff_wall ] describes… ‘Jeff Wall is renowned for large-format photographs with subject matter that ranges from mundane corners of the urban environment to elaborate tableaux that take on the scale and complexity of nineteenth-century history paintings.’... ‘Wall calls his photographs, after Charles Baudelaire, ‘prose poems’, a description that emphasises how each picture should be experienced rather than used to illustrate a predetermined idea or a specific narrative.’ (Anon)
Jeff Wall, Dead Troops Talk (417cm x 229cm)
Jeff Wall, Steves Farm, Steveston 1980 (Transparency in lightbox, 58cm x 229 cm)
The Museum of Contemporary Art tells us that ‘Wall’s primary desire ‘was to push photography closer to painting’...In works such as Steve’s Farm, Stevenston ’wall imparts a sense of “old master” scale to his landscapes ; using a very large panoramic format - approximately two feet by eight feet - he obtains a painting-like scale the fully holds the wall’ (Koshalek, R in Brougher, K. and Wall, J. (1997). Jeff Wall. Los Angeles, CA: Museum of Contemporary Art.).
In this [ http://www.museomagazine.com/JEFF-WALL ] interesting interview with David Shapiro, Wall talks about ‘monumental photography’ as being a relatively recent phenomenon, breaking out of the documentary/book model that fine art photography was generally based on up to the 70s. He describes how experimentation has led to this style of presentation and that ‘Photography’s gotten a lot bigger in the last ten or twelve years, because it’s become a known thing that a photograph can look great at that scale’. The article alludes to Gursky and Tillmans..
Andreas Gursky is an artist who is hard to ignore when it comes to scale. His hyper-real photographs entice the viewer into the image. Initially from a distance, one is attracted by his super formal aesthetic and secondly, by the fantastic detail captured by his large format camera almost to the point where your nose touches it. The size of the work allows the viewer to investigate details that would be lost if it was printed at a smaller size.
[ http://www.andreasgursky.com/en ]
Gursky, Montparnasse (354cm x 149cm)
Gursky, Montparnasse (detail)
Gursky, Montparnasse (closer detail)
Claes Oldenburg and Jeff Koons use large scale aesthetic in their work. The work that is useful to us are large sculptural pieces that scale up ordinary, mundane objects from daily life, or in Koons' case, up-scaled (massively!) versions of balloon animals.
When Bigger Is Better: Claes Oldenburg...
http://articles.latimes.com/1995-07-02/entertainment/ca-19310_1_claes-oldenburg
Claes Oldenburg
Jeff Koons….
http://www.jeffkoons.com/
Jeff Koons, Balloon Dog
Jeff Koons is the current holder of the record for the highest price paid for a work by a living artist for Balloon Dog (Orange). Which leads us on nicely to...
It is arguable that there is a direct correlation between the ‘aura’ of a great work of art and its monetary value (I can’t remember where I read about it at this point). With this in mind, we can look to Sotherby’s international auction house, to see what they have to say about the size of art works and the value of a piece. This video is one of a series of 10 that discuss different valuation criteria. And yes, the conclusion is that size does affect value.
I will revisit Koons, Gursky and Oldenburg at a later date.
If you are reading this blog and feel you can add something to my research then please comment… even if you are correcting me or don’t agree with something that I say.
Monday, 10 September 2018
Tech Starting Point
The laptop and Oculus Rift have arrived!
Setting everything up was a breeze and the laptop easily proved itself up to the tasks ahead and works seamlessly with the Oculus Rift. I then spent a couple of hours acquainting myself with the VR world using Oculus's First Contact app, Google Earth VR (fantastic), Marvel Powers United game (it came with the Rift... honest!) and Mission:ISS. Everything performed perfectly - no lag and no flicker.
After making myself thoroughly sick exploring the International Space Station (I now know I could never be an astronaut) I decided to move on to downloading and learning Unreal Engine, the free software in which the VR spaces/galleries will be built. I like to be hands-on and while I plan to ask for help and support from people with more expertise, I want to build, make mistakes and explore different shape and sized galleries at my own speed. I also want enough expertise to combat any problems I may face when out in the field.
It is fairly easy to build spaces in Unreal Engine, although getting them to function well is where the real skill in this software lays. I am using Unreal's templates as a starting point, but the biggest issue I am having at the moment is lighting. But these are my initial efforts (please excuse the gun! I don't plan on using it in any of the finished spaces)...
I should have some artworks installed soon...TBC.
After making myself thoroughly sick exploring the International Space Station (I now know I could never be an astronaut) I decided to move on to downloading and learning Unreal Engine, the free software in which the VR spaces/galleries will be built. I like to be hands-on and while I plan to ask for help and support from people with more expertise, I want to build, make mistakes and explore different shape and sized galleries at my own speed. I also want enough expertise to combat any problems I may face when out in the field.
It is fairly easy to build spaces in Unreal Engine, although getting them to function well is where the real skill in this software lays. I am using Unreal's templates as a starting point, but the biggest issue I am having at the moment is lighting. But these are my initial efforts (please excuse the gun! I don't plan on using it in any of the finished spaces)...
I should have some artworks installed soon...TBC.
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