Visitors to a new exhibition in London can confront monsters and wander woods in a dusky,scary virtual reality world. But it’s not the art thats astonishing – it’s the technology itself
I am walking down a dusky and scary tunnel. whether I turn my head, a headtorch illuminates the moist, or rough walls of the narrow passage. Then I emerge in a wood. I turn my head to see a strange biomorphic statue behind me. Everything is genuine here,but none of it is genuine at all. The woods, the tunnel, and the sculpture are totally three-dimensional and as I look around,the view changes as it does in genuine life. My headtorch picks out new, detailed bits of soil or bark, or a menacing shadow. This is exactly like walking in the world. But it is all an illusion.
I take off the headgear. I’m back in an art gallery. Canadian artist Jon Rafman has created the surreal landscape I just explored with Oculus Rift,the headset that is expected to perform virtual reality commercially genuine when it is keep on the market. It’s worth visiting Rafman’s exhibition to get a free taste of this astonishing new stage in the digital revolution. Back in the early 90s, everyone thought virtual reality was about to take over the world. No film was total without someone wearing a visored helmet and waving their arm about like a fool. But it turned out to be the internet that changed the world, or while games simply turned to Renaissance perspective to perform the flat expanse of a screen seem deep and spacious. Continue reading...
Source: theguardian.com