The rapid development of computer, network and virtual reality technologies is prompting artists to increasingly use them as artistic media. At the same time, the characteristics of digital and virtual artworks - such as the overcoming of gravity - demand new, suitable forms of presentation. Roehrs & Boetsch is therefore opening a virtual gallery for virtual art - CUBE - in addition to its physical location in Zurich.
CUBE is a virtual reality platform that simulates a virtual gallery for virtual art. New virtual reality architectures like CUBE are the logical environment for digital and virtual - especially three-dimensional - art. CUBE is primarily intended for digital and virtual artworks without a physical original, whose faithful realisation in the physical world fails or makes little sense. CUBE serves to test and develop new virtual artworks and virtual exhibition formats.
Roehrs & Boetsch sees CUBE as an incubator of a development process that is still in its infancy and will take place in the interplay of artistic creativity and increasing competence in dealing with virtual reality and new technological possibilities for experiencing it.
Art that users can interact with
Via VR glasses (Vive), the visitor enters the virtual gallery building for a self-determined immersive tour. A controller is used to move through the gallery rooms, which extend over five levels. Different virtual artworks are shown on the individual levels. The visitor can approach them, walk around them and view them from various angles. Some works can be experienced acoustically and visitors can even interact with others. In this pioneering project, exhibition space and art combine to form an integrated virtual reality, which at the same time enables the direct juxtaposition of individual virtual artworks, comparable to typical exhibition situations in the physical world.
The idea for this new exhibition concept came from the gallery owner Nina Röhrs, with the artistic design of the architecture and the technical implementation the artist Manuel Rossner commissioned. In close collaboration, they developed CUBE over the course of a year. On 16 January 2019, CUBE opened at the gallery in Zurich with a first group exhibition on the theme of sculpture. In this group exhibition 'Virtual Natives -Sculpture' curated by Nina Röhrs, the artists Banz & Bowinkel, Martina Menegon, Chiara Passa, Manuel Rossner and Theo Triantafyllidis present sculptural works newly created for this exhibition or further developed in view of CUBE's new exhibition possibilities.Further exhibitions will follow.
Source: Media release
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