Conspiracy: Conjoining the Virtual / Kristin McWharter (US)
A participatory artwork that incorporates virtual reality within sculptural form. The work interrogates individual subjectivity within collective decision making as five people interact through the sculptural object each directed by their own augmented reality experience. Inspired by the manipulative nature and allure of virtual reality as well as the persuasive rhetoric of game mechanics, the participants play a simple game of capture the flag within the virtual space while the sculptural fixture restricts their movement compelling them to predictably move side to side in physical space. This behavior in turn activates the physical object; each headset is separated by a set of bellows such that when participants step side to side air compresses as if the sculpture is “breathing”. This work builds on the artist’s research of how isolating qualities of VR in conjunction with social haptic feedback can expose viewer subjectivity and social influence through the expression of the body.
Credit: Kristin McWharter
Conspiracy: Conjoining the Virtual / Kristin McWharter (US)
A participatory artwork that incorporates virtual reality within sculptural form. The work interrogates individual subjectivity within collective decision making as five people interact through the sculptural object each directed by their own augmented reality experience. Inspired by the manipulative nature and allure of virtual reality as well as the persuasive rhetoric of game mechanics, the participants play a simple game of capture the flag within the virtual space while the sculptural fixture restricts their movement compelling them to predictably move side to side in physical space. This behavior in turn activates the physical object; each headset is separated by a set of bellows such that when participants step side to side air compresses as if the sculpture is “breathing”. This work builds on the artist’s research of how isolating qualities of VR in conjunction with social haptic feedback can expose viewer subjectivity and social influence through the expression of the body.
Credit: Kristin McWharter