Art at the VRDAYS with Anna Zhilyaeva

With a VR headset on her head, she swung her controllers through the air on stage in a highly concentrated manner and yet with a certain lightness. The talk is of Anna Zhilyaeva, a Russian-French VR artist, who showed one of several art performances this weekend in Oerlikon in Hall 622 at the VRDays.

Anna is known - at least in the VR sector - mainly for her cool clips, which can be found on YouTube, Instagram and Twitter. She paints various portraits of people, animals, plants and various objects. She knows her tools Tilt Brush and Masterpiece VR like nobody else.

All the visitors who attended her show on stage could see this for themselves. While she was decorating the already existing contours of the parrots with paint on stage, there were some nasty tongues that said it looked more like painting by numbers. But even they quietened down in the end when they looked at the overall work. "It looks mega cool somehow! But I wouldn't have any patience," said one of the spectators.

Audience members were also given the opportunity to ask questions after the performance and go on stage to view the work in the virtual world. "It's a cool feeling to stand inside a painting".

VR installation properly staged

But Anna's art installation is also quite an eye-catcher: a transparent, mysteriously lit curtain delimited the room, with the VR headset hanging down from above in the middle. Many also wondered about the futuristic-looking computer standing next to it. I wonder what it is? How much does it cost?

A look behind the scenes

Some of the visitors wanted to learn more from the master and therefore attended her workshops. In one she showed how to create a kite with Masterpiece VR and in the other she showed how to get from beginner to advanced level in Tilt Brush within a short time.

According to them, some of the participants had come to VRDAYS especially for their workshop. Satisfied and thanking the participants, they left the obviously entertaining hour.