Rise of the Tidal Island Queens, 2023
VR experience for Oculus Rift and Meta Quest
The work combines CGI imagery inspired by the myth of Aphrodite’s violent birth; how the goddess of Love and Fertility was born a grown woman shaped form the white foam of the sea, and an audio piece that is a virtual continuation of “memory work” and built upon the written and oral reflections of middle-aged women how they feel in their body and mind. Adding narrative from the “surreal artist Ithell Colquhoun with her vision of divine femininity, in which the woman becomes a landscape and merges with earth … In this metaphor, the project question’s themes related to mature women such as ageism, body confidence, and criticism of the eternal youthful representation of the female body. The clash between the two players: the body and the mind” (MiMi, Agora Digital Art). During the VR experience visitors find themselves stranded on a remote tidal island when a gang of naked middle-aged female avatars with different body shapes descend from an ocean interspersed with blood. They are playful, jump, dance, and shake their crowns underlined by the sound of the ocean. When the playfulness ends, they squat, and the folds of their bellies resemble the folds of the rocks and become frozen in time. Hereafter visitors float towards a cave system where they discover giant Venus sculptures and observe groups of amazons celebrating their rituals accompanied by a multi-layered soundscape woven with oral quotes of middle-aged women.
The 360 video is 8 min 16 sec long. The Room scale VR experience for Oculus Rift is 15 min max but can end anytime.
“Rise of the Tidal Island Queens” was initially developed during a digital residency with Agora Digital Art and Metaxu Studios.
Teaser Version of project is available on Mozilla Hubs https://hubs.mozilla.com/mpBaYtA/
Idea, concept, cinematography, animation: Andrea G Artz
Sound Design: Isa Suarez
Thanks to the women who wrote or/and read the wonderful quotes!
And to Veronica B. for the title idea and inspirational conversations.
IMAGES
VIDEO LINK
ABOUT THE ARTIST
Andrea is an artist, lecturer and photographer based in London. Her work has emerged out of photography’s expanded field and includes installation, sculpture, collage, video, and immersive realities such as VR and AR. Her projects use innovative technology to explore subjects as diverse as travel, existential loneliness, freedom of mind, death, and travel to the afterlife. She is particularly interested in the human body and the connection between body and mind, and how we navigate between physical and digital worlds.
Recent awards and commissions include shortlist for the Virtual Reality Art Prize; Time - Space - Money Bursary a-n, 2022; Grain Projects Commission Award Covid Responses, 2020; Arts Council England Lottery grant, 2020; Mac Dowell Colony Fellowship Award, 2018; and Ecce (European Centre for Creative Economy) award, 2017. Artist residencies Agora Digital Art, 2022; Yucca Valley Material Lab, California, USA, 2020; and Mac Dowell Colony Residency, Peterborough, NH, USA, 2018.
Solo exhibitions “Distant Perigrinations”, Neuland Projekt Raum, Bochum, Germany, 2021; “Ghost Weight Experience”, Coleman Project Space, London, 2021; “Forest of Query”, Foyer Gallery, University of Leeds, 2019; “Ghost Weight”, Crol & Co, London, 2018; “Farewells”, Rottstr5 kunstahllen, Bochum, Germany, 2017.
If you are interested in exhibiting or viewing this artistic VR experience, please send an email to us.
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