Around a week ago, I had the opportunity to attend a Zoom event titled 'Cosmological Elements' which was an online tour of an art exhibition of the same name drawing artists from around the world. Specifically, this online event was a guided tour of the first chapter named 'Hidden Dimension' where Dr. Claudia Schnugg and Professor Victoria Vesna showcased some of the fascinating work created using state-of-the-art technology in this exhibition.
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Zoom attendance email confirmation/ticket for the Cosmological Elements event |
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| Dr. Claudia Schnugg introducing Chapter 1 of the Cosmological Elements online exhibition/guided tour |
Professor Vesna's virtual tour was titled '[Alien] Star Dust' and I was immediately able to draw connections between the content in our class and pieces of Professor Vesna's exhibition. The first piece in the exhibition that stood out to me was the meteorite gallery installed in the Natural History Museum in Vienna in March 2020. The meteorite gallery is described as 3D-printed enlarged models of micrometeorites present in the museum and it shows how connections between science (geology), art, and technology (3D printing) come together to create this experience.
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Alien Star Dust Installation/AR/3D prints/ Meditation, Cosmology Exhibition, Fosun Foundation, Shanghai (Source: alienstardust.com) |
The second work of art in Professor Vesna's exhibition that showed the deep-rooted connection of technology and art in her pieces was the AR meteorite installations. These installations are located in the Fosun Foundation in Shanghai. Professor Vesna utilizes various engineering tools (such as simulation software, AR software, and 3D printing techniques) to produce cosmological pieces which not only educate and inform the audience about the unnoticed micrometeorites that surround us but also provide a meditative experience as shown in her [Alien] Star Dust website (Naturhistorisches Museum Wien 2020).
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Using Unity software to create AR meteorite elements (Source: alienstardust.com)
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Professor Vesna's meditative experience demonstrates the power that technology played during the 2020 global pandemic to provide calm throughout the chaos. Professor Vesna encapsulated scientific discoveries of meteorites from nearly 4.5 billion years ago ranging from all 7 continents and used sound and visuals to create a global meditative. As described on the artist's panels on the exhibition website: "working on this project was also an opportunity to experiment with online collaboration – working with sound artists remotely – in real-time" (Schnugg and Long).
In last week's blog, we learned about how technological advancements and robotics could hinder the 'aura' and originality in art, however, this powerful exhibition from Professor Vesna demonstrates that technology, on the contrary, aids the development of art (Benjamin 2005).
References:
Benjamin, Walter. “The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction.” Edited by Hannah Arendt. Translated by Harry Zohn, Marxists.org, Schocken/Random House, Feb. 2005, https://www.marxists.org/reference/subject/philosophy/works/ge/benjamin.htm.
“Naturhistorisches Museum Wien - Exhibition Detail.” Naturhistorisches Museum Wien - Exhibition Detail, 11 Mar. 2020, https://www.nhm-wien.ac.at/en/alien_star_dust.
Schnugg, Claudia, and Iris Long. “Cosmological Elements.” Cosmological Elements, https://cosmoselements.art/.
Vesna, Victoria. “About.” ALIEN STAR DUST, https://alienstardust.com/about/.
Vesna, Victoria. “Victoria Vesna.” Victoria Vesna | Projects, https://victoriavesna.com/index.php?p=projects&item=1.
Image References:
Vesna, Victoria. “About.” ALIEN STAR DUST, https://alienstardust.com/about/.
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