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© Ida Kvetny
Ida Kvetny
Lithodendrum, 2020
A hallucinogenic vibe is imminent in Ida Kvetny's Virtual Reality (VR) work Lithodendrum. Dancing figurines and deep techno grottoes make up for all the closed adventure parks and shopping malls during the quarantine. The viewer is delegated to experience this grotesque multi-sensory inferno with corona edition DIY VR-glasses. Kvetny’s work is the party we need to immerse ourselves into these times. Definitely, you could party in here for days, drifting away into a subconscious cosmography of Medusa-like avatars on saturated coral red cliffs with deep blue trees swaying in the wind. Like Neverland, it only exists if you believe in it, but is it the future? Kvetny’s reckless visual language and color fetichism makes this escapist experience close to an overdose, and thus, the work ends up questioning the very nature of VR: What kind of Disneyland are we immersing ourselves into, when the body’s capability of new sensations has become a crucial resource for contemporary forms of capitalism in digital creative industries? And how does this digital Disneyland impact us?
Ida Schyum
cand.mag in art history
Lithodendrum - Virtual Reality Work
For download VR build for Oculus Rift & HTC Vive please send a request here
360 degree video for computer and phone
(360* supported browser)
Still from exhibited work
360 degree video for VR cardboard and phone
DIY VR headset cardboard
Augmented Reality Sculpture
Still from exhibited work
Ida Kvetny says
'Lithodendrum´ is a cohesive installation comprising a 360-degree VR multi-sensory experience space. The work is founded in the nature philosopher Schelling’s perception of the universe as one big organism. Taking inspiration from the quotation: “the spirit sleeps in the rock, dreams in the plant, awakens in the animal and become conscious in Man”, a multimodal inner landscape is created where the body dissolves and the viewer flows above a rippling sea of colours and over a romantic landscape of coral red cliffs and deep blue trees swaying in the wind.
The universe is peopled by Medusa-like organisms moving restlessly in the landscape of 3D scanned ceramic objects and VR created symbolisms. A 3D soundscape pushes the viewer through different layers of nature, architecture and chambers of the subconscious. The work takes the form of a virtual journey comparative to an expedition in a collective subconscious. Here, digital tracks fuse with existing works and create an imagery where the viewer may reach a new level of immersion.
The physicality has the ability to titillate the viewer’s sense of reality and create a myth-like condition. The work reveals a non-linear story where associations and longing provokes a weave of visibility/invisibility, materiality/immateriality, mortality and infinity as well as forms of their representation. You are left with a sense of insight into a new cosmography, the be a participant in a spiritual journey or a sneak-peak into the hyperrealistic imagination of the future.