Augmented & Virtual Reality Confabulation
What Augmented Reality and Virtual Reality developers are talking about
Musée d’Orsay adds AI and VR to display of artist’s last works, never previously seen together
For a man who died in 1890, Vincent van Gogh seemed remarkably au fait with 21st-century parlance.
Asked why he had cut off his left ear, the artist replied that this was a misconception and he had in fact only cut off “part of my earlobe”. So why did he shoot himself in the chest with a revolver, causing injuries from which he died two days later?
Continue reading...The Venice film festival section Venice Immersive is dedicated to ‘extended reality’, where visitors can explore new narrative worlds. Our intrepid correspondent gets lost
I’m at the Venice film festival, in a hyper-real city square, surrounded by lapping blue water and tourists who move in mysterious ways. There is a ginger cat here called Dorian who walks on his hind legs and speaks with a French accent. Dorian is showing us how to walk and turn and jump and crouch. He’s concerned by the tourist who can’t get herself off the ground. Dorian explains that if we ever get lost we should press the “respawn” button which will put us right back where we began. He sighs heavily and says: “Sooner or later everybody gets lost.”
It is the fear of getting lost – this terror of the unknown – that scares many punters away from Venice Immersive, which sits behind the big Mussolini-era casino that hosts the film festival proper. That and the boat ride, the headsets, the schedule, the stress. The movies on the main programme: they’re largely a known quantity. Whereas the “extended reality” exhibits out on VI island are almost too much to process; we lack even the grammar and the language to frame them. To misquote Bob Dylan, something is happening here – but no one, it seems, can definitively say what it is.
Continue reading...Please note that the following review is not an endorsement of purchasing the NFTs discussed, and the author does not themself own any of the collection.
NFTs come in a broad range of formats, from video clips to still images to audio clips. The most intriguing examples, however, are the ones that make use of the unique functionality of NFTs themselves. A good example is the REPLICATOR collection by Canadian NFT artist Mad Dog Jones (also known as Michah Dowbak) which takes full advantage of the power of smart contracts to offer some intriguing possibilities.
Originating with a short animated video clip of a photocopier, each entry in the collocation retains that central element but varies the surrounding environment. So far, so expected for NFT art. But tying in with the theme of replication, the smart contract contained within NFTs in the collection creates new NFT generations over time.
The project has seven distinct generations containing bespoke artwork, all with cyberpunk, dystopian stylings that neatly align with Web3 concepts such as the metaverse. The original piece was sold by art dealer Phillips for $4,144,000 In April 2021 and according to the artist’s site, so far 208 examples have been generated.
To avoid exponential growth where each piece could generate new versions indefinitely, Dowbak’s collection is capable of producing so-called jams (again referencing the photocopier central to the pieces) which result in unique artworks but also stop a generation from being able to replicate any further.
The animation in each piece tends to be relatively low-key, dedicated to producing an overall mood rather than drawing too much attention. Sometimes that can work against the piece’s favour, but it does ensure that the mood tends to be both intimate, thanks to the cramped confines and soft lighting, and unsettling, with an everpresent dystopian skyline outside.
The selection of a photocopier as the main subject of the collection is a pointed one, with Phillips noting that it’s a “nostalgic nod to a once-cutting-edge technology, now on its way toward obsolescence.” With that in mind, the collection reflects on the current ubiquity of NFTs – serving as a memento mori that nothing last forever.
Of course, it also ties in thematically with the concept of replication, as well as contributing to a 1980s aesthetic. “REPLICATOR is the story of a machine through time. It is a reflection on forms of past groundbreaking innovation and serves as a metaphor for modern technology’s continuum. I’m interested to see how collectors will respond as the work evolves and the NFTs in their possession continue to create new generations,” said Mad Dog Jones.
What this means is that the collection can include a narrative that reveals itself over time. In the original generation, we see a copy machine turning on and off in an office setting. In some of the collection, the looming threat of the outside has successfully crept in, as with a Generation 6 example in which the copier and the room at large have been destroyed and sprayed with graffiti. Most are much lower key, however, whether that’s a waste paper basket fire in Generation 3 or a lizard invasion in Generation 4.
This is not Mad Dog Jones first foray into NFTs, having previously worked on a collection known as Crash + Burn, which consisted of seven unique pieces. Accessing said pieces required ownership of five separate examples from a previous NFT drop. Once collected, they could be sent to the artist, who would burn them in exchange for an item from the Crash + Burn collection. In doing so, Mad Dog Jones rewarded owners of pieces from his first collection, which saw an increase in value thanks to the sudden addition of new utility.
The deployment of random chance means the collection also engages with the broader world of “aleatoric” or “aleatory” art whereby artists have embraced the role of random chance in their artworks. Randomisation is a prominent feature of the NFT landscape, as with the interchangeable traits that constitute the characters of the best-known NFT collections such as the Bored Ape Yacht Club.
It raises an interesting broader point about the artistic value of algorithmically-assembled pieces. While individual elements may have had plenty of thought put into them, their combination could produce an undesirable effect. That possibility has become an accepted part of the NFT market, with the masses of unremarkable and ugly examples inflating the price of the ones that are thematically coherent (although exceptionally ugly examples can become more valuable by virtue of that fact).
REPLICATOR is a good example of the possibilities afforded to artists who embrace the unique possibilities of Web3. Thanks to the power of smart contracts, pieces that would otherwise be experienced as fairly disposable art objects can be given utility that radically extends their lifespans.
Please note that the following review is not an endorsement of purchasing the NFTs discussed, and the author does not themself own any of the collection.
One of the most prestigious events in the cinema calendar, the Cannes Film Festival is currently running until the 28th of May. Returning with full spectator capacity for the first time in two years thanks to a loosening of COVID-19 restrictions, the event is embracing Web3 technology in a number of ways, including the first-ever NFTCannes Summit hosted by production studio Electromagnetic Productions (EMP), global cryptocurrency financial management company Galaxy Interactive, NFT app OP3N, blockchain platform Avalanche and private investing platform Republic.
The focus of our attention today, however, is an NFT collection that confers access to screenings for some of the biggest films debuting at the festival. In keeping with 2022 being the 75th anniversary of the festival, pplpleaser, a multidisciplinary artist based in New York City, has created a series of 75 NFTs in partnership with video content publisher Brut, an official media partner of the festival.
The artist previously worked in visual effects, with credits in feature films such as Batman v Superman, Wonder Woman and Star Trek Beyond, as well as games from Blizzard and others. She rose to prominence in the NFT world as an early creator of NFT animations, helping to define the anime-indebted aesthetic found throughout the sector.
The collection is divided up into tiers, though each retains the same basic concept of an animated, seemingly anime-inspired white fox (somewhat reminiscent of Moro in the Studio Ghibli classic Princess Mononoke) walking the red carpet and striking a pose. The fox is fluidly animated, with silver tier NFTs featuring tie-ins with films opening at the festival. In the Top Gun: Maverick-themed NFT, it wears a pair of Aviator sunglasses, while in the Elvis-themed piece, it poses with a guitar.
While nice enough, the art is not the main attraction here. Depending on the tier of NFT purchased, different perks are accessible. NFTs in the most numerous bronze tier cost 5 ETH and confer access to the red carpet and a film showing. In the 6 ETH silver tier, holders are invited to the world premieres of Top Gun: Maverick, Elvis and Three Thousand Years of Longing respectively, while the 7 ETH gold tier NFTs enable holders to attend either the opening or closing ceremonies.
The NFTs are minted using the decentralized film distribution platform Shibuya, of which the artist pplpleasr is a founder. The platform is geared towards allowing users to fund and simultaneously guide the production of short films by minting producer pass NFTs. Unlike some other NFT-funded projects, the plan is for completed films to be made available to watch for free, rather than requiring direct NFT ownership to watch (as with Stoner Cats, an NFT collection tied to a series of short films backed, strangely enough, by Mila Kunis).
All proceeds from the NFT sales will be given to the University of Southern California’s Annenberg Inclusion Initiative and its Annenberg Accelerator Program, which supports aspiring female content creators.
“The Accelerator Program is one of our many solution-based initiatives to support and develop the next generation of talented female-indentifying creators,” said founder Dr. Stacy L. Smith of the collaboration. “We are thrilled that Brut and pplpleasr have seen the importance of such a project and have chosen to back us in this way.”
Interestingly, the NFTs are initially non-transferrable until they have been redeemed for red carpet access, at which point they can be sold on secondary markets. It’s an intriguing approach, giving what are effectively glorified tickets an afterlife as tradeable collectables that carry with them some of the mystique of the event they were originally for.
Cannes is not the only film festival to have gotten into the NFT game, with the Raindance festival creating a collection based on posters for the festival over the years. The wider film industry, too, is increasingly getting on board with the technology. Just one example is Decentralized Pictures, a blockchain-powered filmmaker platform founded by Roman Coppola and backed by Steven Soderbergh’s production company Extension 765, among others. The DAO-like platform is set to go live during the festival, using a native token, FILMCredits, as a voting mechanism to decide the worthiness of films for funding.
While the Cannes Producer Pass Collection is not going to set the world on fire by itself, it does represent an intriguing new opportunity for a film industry that is rapidly adopting Web3 technology. If Web3 is to succeed, it surely needs the participation of mainstream sectors and combining the glitz and glamour of Cannes, pplpleasr’s art, and a dose of innovative utility is a step in the right direction.
Please note that the following review is not an endorsement of purchasing the NFTs discussed, and the author does not themself own any of the collection.
If you’ve heard of one NFT collection over the past week, it’s probably MOTHER OF CREATION. A collaboration between singer-songwriter Madonna and NFT artist provocateur Beeple, the collection has hit the mainstream news thanks to it prominently featuring a highly detailed 3D recreation of the former’s genitalia (yes, really).
MOTHER OF CREATION is described as an “NFT Triptych”, consisting as it does of three separate short looping animated videos that combine graphic computer-generated imagery with spoken audio.
While a collaboration between a bonafide Queen of Pop and a transgressive NFT artist might sound like a match made in hell (Cher and Pak, anyone?), Beeple and Madonna are perhaps the only two members of those categories with enough in common to make it work. That’s because it’s a work that cleaves close to both artists’ oeuvres. Madonna is no stranger to baring her flesh, digital or otherwise. And in Beeple’s case, he has priors with this kind of explicit artwork – think TOXIC MASCULINITY, which paired monumental Jeff Bezos heads with equally monumental male genitalia. So how does MOTHER OF CREATION stand up?
First, let’s set out what each piece consists of. MOTHER OF TECHNOLOGY sees a Madonna reading out the poetry of 13th-century Persian poet Rumi while robotic centipedes (representing technology, the gloss tells us) crawl out of her digital representation into a verdant forest, just as Rumi would have wanted it. MOTHER OF EVOLUTION, meanwhile, sees the same representation of Madonna releasing a swarm of butterflies (no prizes for guessing where from) into an apocalyptic cityscape, while in voiceover she reads lyrics from her 1990 song Justify My Love. Finally, in MOTHER OF NATURE, “an opening gives way to a branch,” as the gloss tactfully puts it, with a tree sprouting and flourishing in a stark and austere laboratory setting.
Apparently, this is the culmination of a year-long collaboration between the pair, which according to Beeple “makes it more special because we thought about it a lot.” One can’t help but feel that if they’d thought about it some more, they might have realised the ways the project is actively working against itself. Based on the titles of the artworks, and Madonna’s own statements (“We set out to create something that is absolutely and utterly connected to the idea of creation and motherhood”), the artists are attempting to provide a commentary on motherhood and its relationship to artistic production. but the sterility of the plastic, Barbie-esque version of Madonna (who is conspicuously non-pregnant) seems directly opposed to that ambition.
It would be more truthful to say that the artists are actually not out to lionise motherhood but to shock instead. Of course, there’s absolutely nothing wrong with that approach, but in an art form already awash with irony and cynicism, it seems tired and, perversely, distinctly un-shocking.
Meanwhile, the audio that accompanies each piece frames what we are viewing as inspirational (“my journey through life as a woman is like that of a tree,” says Madonna in MOTHER OF TECHNOLOGY). Madonna, however, has a history of putting her foot in her mouth when it comes to attempting to say something profound, and there’s equally a sense here that an attempt at profundity has resulted in something quite empty instead.
Of the three, MOTHER OF NATURE is the most successfully realised. It benefits from seemingly having had the most attention to detail put into it of the three, with original words from Madonna and, weird as it is, some highly detailed animation work on the tree itself. Little wonder it fetched the highest price. MOTHER OF TECHNOLOGY sold for 66.55eth (approximately $135,000 at the time of writing), MOTHER OF EVOLUTION 72.05eth (approximately $147,000) and MOTHER OF NATURE 170.5eth (approximately $346,000). Altogether, that’s almost $630,000.
What can’t be denied is that the proceeds are going to worthy causes. Madonna and Beeple have pledged that all proceeds are going towards three charities, those being the NGO City of Joy, which provides a community for women survivors of violence in the Democratic Republic of Congo, and Ukraine’s Voices of Children Foundation, which helps women and children affected by the ongoing war in the country, and Black Mama’s Bailout Initiative, which helps women and caregivers spend time with families outside of jail.
MOTHER OF CREATION is not a work that will endear anyone who is sceptical of the reputation for gaudy avarice that surrounds the NFT world, bearing all the hallmarks of bad taste and a distinct lack of subtlety. And while it’s nice that the proceeds are going to charity, that betrays the fact that this is less a serious piece of art, and more a fundraising effort – which is all the more effective the more Madonna and Beeple can generate controversy and get themselves back into the headlines. Be careful not to gaze too long into Madonna’s abyss. Because Madonna’s abyss gazes also into you.
Please note that the following review is not an endorsement of purchasing the NFTs discussed, and the author does not themself own any of the collection.
NFTs are traditionally associated with pieces of digital art (hence the common criticism of them being glorified JPEGs). A collection from the Paris-based artist Pascal Boyart, otherwise known as PBoy, deftly shows that NFTs needn’t be only restricted to digital artworks, however.
His Underground Sistine Chapel is an NFT collection that serves as a collision between a Renaissance masterpiece and a modern-style PFP collection. Derived from a recreation of Michelangelo’s sixteenth-century Sistine Chapel fresco The Last Judgment, the collection splits the overall artwork into individual pieces focusing on a specific character. The physical mural is located in an old gold foundry in suburban Paris and was painted during a COVID-19 lockdown in 2020. The 100 square-meter creation features over 400 characters, each of which has been photographed and turned into the 404 individual NFTs that form the collection.
Boyart has been a pioneer in the crypto/art space for quite some time, having first monetized his frescoes in 2017 via QR codes that linked to bitcoin donations. Via that method, he accrued 1.21 bitcoin over a period of two years, before issuing his first NFTs in 2019 – two halves of a fresco called “Daddy, what’s money?” which had been painted two years earlier. Bornet’s website justifies the creation of NFTs as a means of making the artwork “immutable”, owing to the fact that the building on which the mural is painted will at some point be demolished.
Released in 2021 alongside a feature-length documentary on the mural’s creation, Underground Sistine Chapel builds on Boyart’s existing modus operandi when it comes to digitising his physical art – apportioning up frescoes for sale as NFTs via photographs of individual elements present in the piece. Further burnishing Underground Sistine Chapel Web3 credentials, the work itself was financed via NFT presales – representing a potentially transformative new way of raising money for artistic projects that sidesteps patrons or crowdfunding efforts.
Taken as a whole, the full power of the mural becomes apparent – drawing both from Michaelangelo’s original composition and Boyart’s modern rendering. Viewing the piece side-by-side with Michelangelo’s original, we can see this is not a one-to-one recreation. Aside from the shifting around of elements to account for features such as windows in the wall upon which the mural is painted, Boyart also makes his own changes, including swapping the gender of characters and adding modern elements such as depictions of a power plant, an Apple monitor in place of a stone tablet, and falling credit cards shaken out by a demon. Combined with a graphical, comic book style that includes bold black outlines around characters, the overall effect is to wryly equate our modern way of life with the apocalyptic scene depicted by the original.
It’s foolish to devote too much time to the overall image, however, as the NFT collection is experienced by the purchaser as a depiction of an individual character rather than a full composition.
Thankfully, the project holds up in miniature. These are a far cry from the algorithmically arranged faces we’re used to seeing, with each character inheriting the perfectly sculpted and intriguingly posed bodies of Michelangelo’s original, only usually with some enjoyable modern twist. Standouts include Jesus Christ himself (which benefits compositionally from the crowd of onlookers surrounding him, as well as including a special animation), the boatman Charon (who is suitably menacing and largely faithful to the original), and a herald angel who appears to have swapped a horn for an iPad.
A small amount of animated zooming and vignetting on each NFT makes each piece feel sufficiently “Web3”, rather than just being a static image – though it does slightly detract from the viewability of the characters. And it must also be said that many of the NFTs consist of abstract and not immediately readable heads that suffer from not being able to portray the surrounding context. In such cases, all we can really witness are blobs of black and skin tones that don’t make for a particularly captivating image.
Boyart’s blending of a physical artwork with digital NFTs used both to fund the piece and prolong its lifespan could well serve as a template for other artists going forwards. But The Underground Sistine Chapel project doesn’t stand up purely thanks to its novelty. Its invocation of the world-famous original paired with modern references serves as a clever piece of satire, and while the full effect doesn’t quite make it through to the atomised NFTs, the pieces are always at the very least graphically arresting.
The mind-boggling hoard of jewellery the plundering first lady tried to smuggle out of the Philippines is being remade as sculpture by artist Pio Abad – with all its sparkle gone
Over his three terms as president of the Philippines from 1965, Ferdinand Marcos and his wife Imelda were able to cream off some $10bn of the nation’s assets through offshore banks. New revelations that a close associate of the dictator was also able to maintain an account with Credit Suisse as late as 2006 therefore comes as no surprise to Manila-born Pio Abad. For a decade the artist has been making work under the title The Collection of Jane Ryan and William Saunders, a reference to the aliases the couple used with the Swiss bank.
“It’s funny when a 10-year project becomes news,” says Abad, who is now London-based. “These institutions are very culpable for what happened in the Philippines.”
Continue reading...Open Brush shared footage of the upcoming AR passthrough mode, coming soon to the app on all platforms.
Tilt Brush with AR Passthrough on @MetaQuestVR!!
Yes that's right, we're putting the finishing touches to OpenXR passthrough support for Open Brush! AR Passthrough is one of the many the exciting Open Brush developments coming soon for all platforms, forever free
pic.twitter.com/s77wZv03B5
— Open Brush (@openbrushapp) February 10, 2022
As you can see in the video above, the new mode will let you use Tilt Brush in your real environment in Passthrough mode, acting as a halfway point between VR and true AR.
Support will be made possible with Open Brush’s transition over to OpenXR, which the team is putting the “finishing touches” on at the moment. The video above was captured using Passthrough on Quest, but OpenBrush confirmed that the mode will be supported on other platforms as well.
OpenBrush is a free, community-developed continuation of Google’s Tilt Brush art software for VR, which Google ceased development on and made open source in early 2021. Open Brush received consistent updates since launch, driven entirely by the community, adding new features, brushes and modes to the app that go beyond the original functionality and scope of Google’s Tilt Brush release. The latest 1.0 update added snapping, grid functionality, brush jitter controls and a new lazy input feature, to name a few.
While the official and now discontinued Google version of Trust Brush remains available for $19.99 on the Oculus Store, Quest users can download Open Brush entirely for free via App Lab for Quest, with more features than you would get in the paid version. Open Brush says the app will remain free, even with all the new features planned for the future.
Will you be trying out Passthrough mode on Open Brush? Let us know what you think in the comments.
The New Yorker has made a virtual art show to take place within the smash-hit game – and a real-life one at London’s Serpentine with a touch of augmented reality. Can it get young gamers into galleries?
For Brian Donnelly – known as Kaws since his graffiti beginnings in 1990s New York – art has always been a communication tool. From street art to vast public commissions, he says, “it’s a chance to create a dialogue”. His desire to bring art to the masses is partly why his work spans collectable toys and streetwear collaborations, as well as paintings and sculptures that sell for millions. His new exhibition will allow him to connect with a large number of eyeballs in, he says, “a new and massive way”. The show, New Fiction, is at London’s Serpentine Gallery, and simultaneously on two free online platforms: the gaming behemoth Fortnite and the augmented-reality (AR) app Acute Art.
With more than 400m player accounts, Fortnite is massive, especially when compared with the estimated footfall of an average Serpentine show (around 35,000). While the uninitiated might dismiss Fortnite as just another shooting extravaganza, players are increasingly spending time in its more peaceful zones, such as creative mode, where they can mooch about the Fortnite metaverse without fear of elimination. “You can hang out with your friends and explore new features,” says Fortnite’s partnerships director, Kevin Durkin. This could mean honing your dance moves but also watching a film or an Ariana Grande concert (as players did in August 2021), or, as of today, visiting an art gallery.
Continue reading...
Artists have been embracing virtual reality (VR) and augmented reality (AR) technology for many years now, exploring new ways of immersing the public in ever more elaborate worlds. If you’re in the UK this week and you’re interested in this side of the XR industry then you might want to head down to the Realities Centre in London, which is hosting an XR Art Fest this Thursday.
Whether you’re an artist interested in learning more about this space or an XR enthusiast who loves to experience the latest XR artworks, XR Art Fest is a one-day celebration featuring workshops, talks, hands-on presentations and more. Guests will be able to take part in workshops with step-by-step tutorials for XR content creation using software like TiltBrush and OpenBrush. The event is sponsored by Psychic VR Lab, the Japanese studio behind the cloud-based XR platform STYLY.
Talks during the day will cover a range of metaverse-related topics, from ‘Art Galleries for NFTs’ looking at how “galleries collaborate with artists to curate and monitise their artwork.” Or how about ‘Virtual Clay Sculpting With Haptics’ by Dr. Ivan Isakov (co-founder / CTO at Valkyrie Industries) who will demo Argil, a VR sculpting app that uses finger tracking and haptics.
“Experiencing creative designs from within brings a whole new paradigm to art,” states Dr. John Holder, CEO Realities Centre Ltd. “We are delighted to bring back the XR Art Fest after a hugely successful first year and offer new opportunities for audiences to not only experience the latest in XR content creation, but also learn how to easily create digital art for themselves.”
The XR Art Fest is a ticketed event with a full event pass coming in at £20 GBP. Taking place this Thursday, 25th November 2021 the XR Art Fest will run from 12:30 pm to 10:00 pm GMT, with plenty of chances to relax, enjoy a drink and socialise with XR professionals and enthusiasts alike.
For further updates on the latest XR events both virtually and physically, keep reading VRFocus.
