Clear Lake Archipelago - VR installation
Clear Lake’s surface represents a threshold between physical and digital space. Stepping through projection screens into an inner chamber, a participant puts on a VR headset and is submerged in a liquid image - a 'below the surface' exploration of an archipelago made from models of our physical world. Their body inhabits a puppet whose face looks in and out, addressing them and the world with whispered narration and circumstantial remarks. Other fluid-like characters populate the islands, existing in ambiguous relations; the figure seems to control and be controlled by them. Moving closer, their surfaces act as lenses, encapsulating and distorting the environment.
On the islands, our inherent stereoscopic depth perception applies, yet looking into the distance, everything appears paradoxically close. These are places of pedestrian nature, where figures act out motion-captured gestures—work, contemplation, public posturing - all characteristic of the models’ given milieu. In their sunken context, they resemble fossil-like artifacts of an actual physicality. This reflects reciprocally on spatial experience in our contemporary realm, fused with metaphysical renderings of digital space.
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