Fertile Methodologies

On eco-sensuality with untethered VR

Grace Kingston (AU), Josh Harle (AU)

Artist Grace Kingston’s work with Tactical Space Lab explored themes of artifice and facade vs nourishment and connection in our digitally-mediated evocations of the natural world, making use of the stand-alone capabilities and hand-tracking of the Oculus Quest to create a site-specific VR work that maps to the natural landscape and features it’s experienced in.

With the use of photogrammetry and spatial mapping, the viewers hands reach out and touch actual trees mirrored in the headset’s view, while an original score from composer Chris Hancock intertwines with actual sounds of water, insects, wind and birds. The work is intended not as a digital substitute for nature, but a way of framing and bringing to the foreground other sensual aspects of the site; smell, touch, and sound.

Video

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Project Credits / Acknowledgements

Tactical Space Lab has been assisted by the Australian Government through the Australia Council, its arts funding and advisory body. The 2020 Virtual Reality Studios are supported by the NSW Government through Create NSW. Documentation produced in partnership with Officedog Productions.

Biography

Grace Kingston (AU) is a multidisciplinary artist; she creates highly aestheticised, intensified and saturated simulacra of the natural world in the form of immersive and multi-sensory environments, objects, images and textiles. Raised in Sydney, Kingston’s formal study was undertaken at the UNSW Art and Design. She is currently a lecturer at SAE Creative Media Institute and a former board member of Runway Experimental Art Journal.