Doireann O’Malley

New Maps of Hyperspace_Test_01, 2020

VR experience for HTC Vive

New Maps of Hyperspace_Test_01 explores a post-human environment where several abandoned experiments to sustain life: behives in incubators, 3D models of bodies, plant and insect colonies lie empty. The work is set in a liminal time when humans have vacated the world. Stepping through a portal, the viewer encounters a circular ball that acts as a narrator and leads them through a surreal colour saturated simulacra of an urban landscape that encompasses a water basin surrounded by architectural remnants of a derelict laboratory and data center. The residues of pre-human consciousness have remained trapped in computers in the data center, uploaded before climate disaster destroyed life. As the viewer explores the interior of these abandoned buildings it is revealed that they contain evidence of experiments that suggest machines are attempting to re-introduce life back on earth. The work is a parable on Alan Turing’s technological disembodiment, Terrence McKenna’s“hyperspace”and an undoing of the matter of consciousness. The work dwells on systems theory, climate care, digital consciousness and data mining. Hyperspace is a notion from science fiction of a superluminal method of travel. It is typically described as an alternative “sub-region” of space co-existing within our own universe which may be entered using an energy field or other device. [1] In most fiction, hyperspace is described as a physical place that can be entered and exited.

The text used to narrate the work is partly composed of quotes from Terrence McKenna’s New Maps of Hyper Space.

https://erowid.org/culture/characters/mckenna_terence/mckenna_terence_new_maps_hyperspace.pdf

Commissioned by Light Work Urban Video Project (Syracuse / USA), National Sculpture Factory (Cork / Ireland), Berlin Program for Artists.

Supported by the Cultural Administration of the State of Berlin and Arts Council of Ireland.

3D scans: Benjamin Busch

Data conversion: Elinor Hasselberg

3D artist: Bertrand Flanet

Programmers: Felix Kraus, Vladimir Storm

Sound design: Caroline McCarthy

Voiceover: Amy (text to speech)

Special thanks to Steph Holl Trieu, The BeeCoin Project, House of Statistics, Floating University.

 

Roomscale

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ABOUT THE ARTIST

Doireann O’Malley (Ireland 1981) holds an MFA from University of Ulster in Belfast, UK. Their multidisciplinary, research-led practice encompasses video, VR and performance. Their works stage an immersive, world-building that captures new modes of subjectivity beyond the narrow gender binaries and rigid role models that have been inherited from a western-centric scientific, philosophical and epistemological legacy.    They are currently a participant of the Berlin Program for Artists (BPA) and they are a research fellow at the Berliner Förderprogramm Künstlerische Forschung 2020-2021. They will be presenting research for a performance at the Gropius Bau, Berlin as part of the BPA from the 5th to the 11th of November 2020. Recent exhibitions, talks and screenings include Urban Video Project, Light Work at The Everson Museum Syracuse, NY, USA; Neuer Berliner Kunstverein (n.b.k.), Berlin, DE; BPA Talks, KW, Berlin, DE; National Sculpture Factory/ Cork Film Festival, Cork, IE; Göteborg International Biennial for Contemporary Art, SE; Stadium Gallery, Berlin, DE; Nordenhake, Mexico City, MEX; Fondazione Adolfo Pini, Milan, IT; Rencontres Internationales, Forum des Archives, Paris & HKW, Berlin; Spaces in Between, Bozar, Brussels, BE; Mumok Kino, Vienna, AUT; Dublin City Gallery, The Hugh Lane, Dublin, IE; Bobs Pogo Bar, KW, Berlin, DE; Berlin Art Prize, 2018, DE; Wild, Edith-Russ-Haus für Medienkunst, Oldenburg, DE. The catalogue Prototypes was produced by Dublin City Gallery, The Hugh Lane and co-published by Sternberg Press and Edith-Russ-Haus für Medienkunst with essays by Lou Drago, Caspar Heinemann and Joel Kuennen.

If you are interested in exhibiting or viewing this artistic VR experience, please send an email to us.

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