“The eyes want to collaborate with other senses. All the senses, including vision, can be regarded as extensions of the sense of touch – as specialisations of the skin. They define the interface between the skin and the environment – between the opaque interiority of the body and the exteriority of the world”
– Juhani Pallasmaa ‘The Eyes of the Skin’
In the first of the 2020 experimental VR studios, Dr Josh Harle works with Grace Kingston to create a fantasy natural environment nested directly within the real. Exploring Kingston’s themes of touch and highly curated, processed visions of the natural world, Harle takes advantage of the standalone and hand-tracking features of the new Oculus Quest to create a unique VR experience completely outside of the studio. With the use of photogrammetry and spatial mapping, the viewers hands are able to reach out in the real world and touch the trees and plant matter of the VR environment, narrowing the gap between the virtual and real in a way not yet seen before. The immersive experience is completed with original audio from Chris Hancock intertwining with the site’s actual sounds of water, insects, wind and birds.
Fittingly, this pastiched VR environment was presented in it’s IRL plantlife collage equivalent, Centennial Park. We chose a space off the beaten track:
33°54’04.4″S 151°13’50.7″E
This project was made possible thanks to funding from the Australia Council for the Arts.
tacticalspace.org
This work was presented at Centennial Park, Randwick in February 2020
