Char Davies
Information
Canadian, b. 1954
Artist Talk with Char Davies and Jakob Kudsk Steensen
Osmose
Virtual Reality Installation, 1995
"Immersion in Osmose begins with the donning of the head-mounted display and motion-tracking vest. The first virtual space encountered is a three-dimensional Cartesian Grid which functions as an orientation space. With the immersant's first breaths, the grid gives way to a clearing in a forest. There are a dozen world-spaces in Osmose, most based on metaphorical aspects of nature. These include Clearing, Forest, Tree, Leaf, Cloud, Pond, Subterranean Earth, and Abyss. There is also a substratum, Code, which contains much of the actual software used to create the work, and a superstratum, Text, a space consisting of quotes from the artist and excerpts of relevant texts on technology, the body and nature. Code and Text function as conceptual parentheses around the worlds within."
Char Davies, immersence.com/osmose
Ephémère
Virtual Reality Installation, 1998
"During public installations of Ephémère, immersion takes place in a private chamber facing a large darkened space where museum visitors can witness the immersive performances as they take place in real time: aurally, as sound is generated by the participant’s behaviour within the work; and visually, as imagery generated from the immersant’s point-of-view is projected in real time onto a large-scale video screen. The shadow-silhouette of the immersant is projected live onto another screen, emphasizing the relationship between bodily presence and the immersive experience."
Char Davies, immersence.com/ephemere