US musician/artist/writer/film director Laurie Anderson was back in Taipei last weekend, five-and-a-half years after she appeared at the National Concert Hall for her Delusion production.
This time she was in town to put the finishing touches on, and do promotions for, La Camera Insabbiata at the Taipei Fine Arts Museum (TFAM), the virtual reality (VR) project she created with Huang Hsin-chien (黃心健), a new media artist and professor at National Chengchi University.
The two have collaborated on a number of projects over the years, going back to their 1995 multimedia CD-Rom Puppet Motel.
Photo Courtesy of Taipei Fine Arts Museum
The Italian title stems from the fact that the interactive/immersive show was created for this year’s Venice Film Festival, where it won the award for the Best VR Experience.
However, it is actually a continuation of a project that Anderson and Huang first created for the Massachusetts Museum of Contemporary Art two years ago entitled Chalkroom, although that was done on a smaller scale.
That TFAM closed last month for a nine-month overhaul of its air-conditioning system and galleries was no obstacle to staging a VR show, but it does substantially reduce the number of people who will be able to see it.
Photo Courtesy of Taipei Fine Arts Museum
The museum erected a small building on its plaza to house La Camera Insabbiata, which consists of eight rooms where viewers can enter a virtual world made of blackboards symbolizing “memory” and fly around to explore words, drawings, symbols and sounds.
Only four people are admitted to each 15-minute session, allotted by morning, afternoon and evening slots, and advance online registration is required.
The first week of the show, which opened on Sunday and runs until Feb. 25, was already fully booked.
The registration system will be open again on Monday at 10am for Tuesday through Dec. 3, and each Monday after that for the succeeding week, through the end of the run.
According to Anderson, a viewer, or “reader” as she says, will fly through a structure made of words, drawings and stories, but one where everything is hand drawn, dark and dusty, as she and Huang wanted to create something that is the antithesis of the bright games most people associate with VR.
Visitors have a choice of eight rooms to visit — The Cloud Room, The Anagram Room, The Dog Room (inspired by Anderson’s drawings of her dog), The Water Room, The Sound Room (where users record sounds that turn into 3D objects), The Dance Room, The Writing Room and The Tree Room.
The audio is in English, but Chinese translations will be provided.
The visitor’s voice will also be recorded during the experience and later visitors will hear those recordings.
Each visitor’s viewing will be unique, as they create their own experience by how they move about and interact with each room — or by doing nothing by watching the show unfold before them.
First time users of VR headsets and equipment are warned they may want to sit on the stools provided until they feel comfortable.
Jason Stern of Canal Street Communications, the technical director of the show, told the audience at a forum with Huang about the project on Saturday that one of the unexpected problems they have had was telling people how to experience VR flight.
“People were flying straight into the wall,” he said.
“People are not used to 360 degree freedom. People go straight, hit the wall and panic. They don’t know what to do,” he said. “If you tell them, ‘go left,’ then suddenly they realize they can navigate, they become Superman.”
Which is a nice segue to one of Anderson’s earlier creations, the 1981 pop hit, O Superman, a song about communication and technology issues.
More information on the show and the booking system is available on TFAM’s English and Chinese-language Web site: www.tfam.museum.
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