Each of the rooms of my gallery simulation are designed in isolation. In a sense, they are wholly individual ‘worlds’, connected only through the game’s mechanics — passing through a ‘door’ will bring the viewer to another, randomly selected room, with no repeats occurring until every room has been viewed at least once.
Each iteration attempts to modify the gallery space in some way, to varying degrees of success. Each room is a heterotopia; although they are physically disconnected “placeless [places]” (Foucault, 1986:24), the rooms modify each other by existing in sequence. Viewers are intended to encounter the environments quickly, yet over time tropes of the space are established; combined with their existing experiences, as well as surreal visual and physic distortions that make use of the inherent ‘falseness’ of the virtual heterotopia, the gallery’s rules are understood, modified and destroyed.
Below are a selection of work-in-progress spaces (developed from sketches featured in 2-4):
The gallery exterior. Intended as an impossible, monolithic structure. I experimented with placing various other objects around the ‘grounds’ of the building – public sculptures and gallery visitors etc – but opted for featureless surroundings so as to focus all attention on the focus space itself.
The first room I created, a simple optical illusion manipulating the scale of two parallel ‘artworks’. I used two designs produced during the 100 Screengrabs project (see 2-0) as placeholders for artworks.
A sheer drop presented as gallery space. An attempt to raise the question as to what physical actions a viewer will perform in pursuit of engagement with art, if commanded to by the space itself. I introduced signage into several of the ‘rooms’ where I felt it necessary, but tried to keep my use of text to a minimum; whilst humour is an intrinsic part of how I have chosen to engage with the ideology of the gallery, I would rather the ‘architecture’ speak for itself.
Low-gravity gallery space. An impossible disruption. I introduced ‘gallery-goers’ to a number of the rooms, using 2D architectural cutouts produced by Case3D; in a number of instances I have attempted to use their placement as a cue for the viewer to consider examining an otherwise unassuming space from different angles or to encourage movements that, due to their surreal nature, would not exist in a ‘real’ gallery.
A gallery within a gallery. Is the art displayed in this room the paintings within the miniature room, or the entire scene itself? Initially I had intended to place the viewer within the miniaturised room, with towering ‘patrons’ gazing down from above. However, through testing I found the reverse to be the more convincing visual effect.
The gallery bathroom. I sought to try to encompass elements of the whole experience of visiting a gallery, as opposed to merely that of viewing art within it. An object presented within one of the toilet stalls challenges the boundaries of the gallery, asking whether the space continues in the absence of art, or in fact re-contextualises that which would not be considered art to be thought of as such.
Maze gallery space. Dead ends feature either artworks or exits. On encountering an exit, the viewer is presented a choice; turn around and re-enter the maze on the possibility of there being unseen artworks in the room, or simply forgo the architectural obstacle and leave. Individual experience will dictate whether the images within the maze or the act of finding the exit constitute the artwork; it is possible a viewer will find an exit before encountering any ‘paintings’ or ‘sculptures’.
The concept for this room developed from thinking that started with my Unit 1 Present response. The 3D model of the maze was originally created in the context of an interrogation of my Downloads folder, seeking to test whether a physical intervention in how the content is accessed changes the way it is viewed. I have re-purposed this space to apply a similar question to art in a gallery setting.
Crowded room. Opinions seem to vary on what this room is attempting to simulate; when showing work-in-progress versions of my project, I have heard it described as it has both an overcrowded private view or the line for viewing world famous masterpiece, swarmed by visitors. Either view suits my attempt to examine the way the inhabitants of a space can re-define its purpose by their active participation.
‘Walk-in painting’. A play on concepts of depth and immersion in 2D art. By passing through the artwork itself, a viewer can enter the scenario pictured. A concatenation of heterotopias; a world within a world within a world.
A gallery room without walls. This room addressing a previously discussed idea; that in virtual space, a room does not have to be a room (see 2-4). This environment is an embrace of medium that presents an illusion of infinite space. Artwork is displayed on the floor, as though placeless. Can this, in fact, be considered a room? What constitutes a room?
‘Platformer’ gallery space. Drawing on some of the traditional design language of action video games, this room presents artwork within an ‘obstacle course’. Platforms, sometimes in motion, are suspended in mid-air; to progress from one door to another and view all of the artwork in the room, a viewer must be cautious of their every move, lest they fall.
This is perhaps the iteration that most directly interfaces with the game world as a tool itself, as well as the separation from reality that it provides; unlike a typical visit to the gallery, ‘death’ (to draw on the lexicon of games) is presented as a ‘real’ possibility. How, if at all, does this change the way the work is viewed?
Framed space. Through the gap in the wall is a separate environment; rather than a gallery space, it is a simulation of a natural scene with trees, rocks, grass and hills. Digitally rendered sound suggests that this is a living space. However, within the confines of the gallery in which the viewer is bound, it is something that can merely be observed. The window to another space is framed; within a gallery, can space itself be contextualised as art?
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Foucault, Michel (1986)
Of Other Spaces (trans. Jay Miskowiec)
in Diacritics, 16:1 pp. 22-27