CatsAndVR.com visits the ART OF VR event at Sotheby's NYC.
Recently I got the chance to visit the Art Of VR event at Sotheby's NY. A big shout out to the team at Oculus for that as well. A public, two-day event, The Art of VR festival showcased just a sample of many of the VR and augmented reality experiences currently unavailable in VR App stores. It also had a plethora of many fantastic branded experiences including the new Aliens VR experience and the new Spider-Man VR experience just released today.
One thing that stood out was the use of Virtual Reality themed mixed media pieces to create a sense of both the connection and disconnection to reality that VR brings us.
One of the artists using her work to showcase both VR/AR in both the Virtual and the Physical realms is Marina Berlin who had her piece "Floating World" on display at the famed auction house. The work is a visual representation of the freedom VR gives you. You may seen Marina's work previously at Bay Area Art and VR events. http://www.catsandvr.com/blog/uploadvrart
I had the chance to chat with Marina and was humbled and surprised to know she was aware of CatsAndVR.com
Another artist on hand was Isaac Cohen aka Cabbibo who is quickly becoming one of my favorite VR artists with his almost punk rock level of VR art production and his willingness to create and share resources.
Cabbibo created a photogrammetry based VR art installation in two days exclusively for the Art of VR event using Unity. He captured a couch that was physically in the room and in turn created a reality virtual reality piece.
My two favorite experiences at the event share similarities but are on two different spectrums of the Virtual Reality landscape. First is the SUPER CUTE Pixar-esq Raising A Rukus from VRC. Even though Raising A Rukus is currently available on the Oculus store VRC did a great job by having game art/props and having haptic feedback chairs available to maximize the experience.
My other favorite experience was MacInnes Scott sexually artistic piece Grace. Grace is visually compelling, reminds me of Bjork, and can channel some interesting energy from people experiencing it as you can see from the twitter video below. Grace made me realize that some of the best content I want to show people is not available on the marketplace yet
All in all I was happy to see how much the art world is embracing VR and hope this turns into better experiences for all.
http://www.catsandvr.com/blog/
