VIRTUAL-REALITY
A Room of One’s Own
3-month online media studies course, January-March 2021Architectural Association, London
Taught by Paula Strunden
Brief
The Spanish artist Joan Miró once said of his studio: 'I think of it as a vegetable garden, where things follow their natural course. They grow, they ripen. You have to graft. You have to water.'
In a similar manner, Pablo Picasso described his studio space to a photographer telling him: "You have to come at night to see it ... This light detached each object, the deep shadows that surround the canvases and are projected onto the beams, you will find them in most of my still lives, painted almost every night... Whatever the environment, it becomes the essence of ourselves, it rubs off on us, is organized according to our nature... ".
A critical and often overlooked aspect of artistic creation is the physical studio space itself and the atmospheric dimension it possesses. What constitutes a creative environment? Would it be possible to translate these vague and ephemeral spatial qualities into the growing realm of virtual technologies? How could a virtual workspace look, feel and sound like that stimulates resourcefulness, promotes ingenuity and fosters our imagination and dreams?
Upon analyzing existing artists' and architects' studio spaces, this course invites each student to analyze and draw his/her current work space and gradually transform it into an imaginary and surreal mixed reality work environment expanding the perception of your body, and turning abstract banal working activities into something more physical and intuitive, which also taps into multiple senses.
To do so we will use photogrammetry, 3d modelling software and the real-time game engine Unity to finally explore your finished designs within an interactive Virtual Reality experience.
VR Film by Sofia Barinova
https://vimeo.com/521968448
Link
https://media.aaschool.ac.uk/studio20-21/term-2/
More images coming soon.