On Saturday, September 14, artist and precursor (see below) Rebecca Allen was awarded the DAM Digital Art Award 2023/24, and honored with a small retrospective exhibition at DAM Projects, Berlin. Wolf Lieser, founder and director of DAM, invited me to give a laudatory speech. You can read it below.
A while ago, I wrote an essay on Theo Triantafyllidis‘ live simulation works, commissioned by Zabludowicz Collection and Fabbula for the catalogue of the amazing exhibition Among the Machines, curated by Paul Luckraft and Julia Greenway. The book – featuring a great array of artists and essays – is now available in print, but my text can be also freely accessed in digital form on Fabbula’s website. Check it out!
Domenico Quaranta, “Theo Triantafyllidis: Live Simulation”, in Paul Luckraft (Ed.), Among the Machines, exhibition catalogue, Zabludowicz Collection, London 2023, ISBN 978-1-907921-40-7.
“Daydream. Segregation from Reality and Stream of Consciousness in Virtual Reality” is an essay I wrote for the catalogue of the exhibition Resonant Realities, curated by Tina Sauerländer. The catalogue is available for free download from this link.
Taking off from an amazing installation by MSHR, I wrote about how virtual reality devices can possible restore a form of immersion and aesthetic experience that is no longer possible, or extremely rare, in reality, where we are flooded by constant flows of information and distracted by the “ever-present assault of simultaneous impulses and commands” (Rushkoff, 2013). In this context, the particular form of immersivity that virtual reality makes possible, especially when mediated by VR headsets, can offer a less distracted aesthetic experience and encourage daydreaming.
If you are interested, you can either read the full text after the break or download the pdf. Enjoy!
Domenico Quaranta, “Daydream. Segregation from Reality and Stream of Consciousness in Virtual Reality”, in Tina Sauerländer (Ed.), Resonant Realities, exhibition catalogue, Deutsche Creditbank AG, Berlin 2021, pp. 28 – 33