Matthew Keff
Pie in the Sky, 2018
VR experience for HTC Vive or Oculus Rift
Pie in the Sky smooshes together sandbox, painting, and coin-clicker gameplay into an abstracted 3D environment. It considers emotional relationships between people, things and each other within the context of digital culture. Pie in the Sky invites players to explore how these mechanisms operate by way of nonsense and creativity. The game questions the design tropes used throughout the popular digital culture. It is curious how they are used to trigger strong emotional responses, for better or worse.
Sugary iconography and audio-visual fanfare fill the view. Anthropomorphic characters fly and float about, they smile, laugh and cry; hearts, stars, fruit, clouds, coins, beach balls and more. Sound effects triggered at random create chance-melody. The imagery can be interpreted in different ways depending on the Viewer’s disposition. In Pie in the Sky, items and effects are mixed up and abstracted in chaotic rhythm into a beat reminiscent of a carnival, traffic jam or social media feed. Through various methods, much of the popular digital culture uses gamified reward patterns to inspire user engagement. Pie in the Sky is both critical and celebratory of this behavior, allowing players to break apart and mix things up in their own manner.
Pie in the Sky has a variable duration dependent on the viewer.
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VIDEO LINK
ABOUT THE ARTIST
Matthew Keff (b.1985) pursues questions of emotion using game engines and graphics. Combining sugary iconography and audio-visual fanfare, the work is realized in various forms and presented via the internet or in physical installations. Interested in the relationships between people and things, namely within digital culture, this process explores fantasy and feelings through abstraction and experimentation. Matthew currently lives and works in Brooklyn NY, US.
If you are interested in exhibiting or viewing this artistic VR experience, please send an email to us.
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