Thinking more about this water show and doing some research into it which has been surprisingly intensive today. Wanted to lay out my current “curatorial thinking” on the show:
Use the Judd Marfa building as the gallery, except that I now plan to use two buildings as per the actual site (and as per v r 2)
Use the Judd Marfa layout of “cubes”, as per v r 2 as well. Each cube will instead be a kind of “plinth” with an inset hollow in the top of it with “water” inside the hollow of one kind of another. Each cube will have a didact on the front where you can read information about the water in the plinth.
(I kind of like the idea of the formality of this, almost a cross between an art show and a museum-style taxonomy/categorisation of the water forms. Feels helpful to link back to the past project in order to minimise the creative decisions I have to make while pushing through this specific project…)
In the first building there are 24 plinths, each of which has some version of Unity (the game engine) water - that is the built in water you get for free with the engine. It’s called “Water Pro” in fact, which is hilarious. It comes in multiple types: day/night, simple/reflective/refractive, and has many possible settings (colour, speed, distortion, etc.) So that it will be possible to create 24 different versions of the water. This building would them be used to look at/think about the parameterisation of water/technology and how that changes its aesthetics…
In the second building there are another 24 plinths, but in this building the plinths show water that was downloaded and often purchased from the Unity Asset Store, a place to buy virtual assets, including water. Haven’t quite decided if each plinth is a totally different water, or if it’s okay to show multiple versions of water from the same “asset” (they sometimes come with more than one). Here the idea is to point to the idea of an economy of water, the idea of people “making water”, the idea of different aesthetic objectives of water (oceans, low-poly, cartoon, realism), etc.
That’s where I’m at. Quite a lot to take in (for me too). I’m thinking about a possible wall text or accompanying brochure, but actually I’m reluctant to do the above thinking for the viewer… I’d rather it might occur to them naturally how strange it all is and in what ways?
What do you think?
I suspect I still need a better name for the gallery.
v r 2 gallery?
Too on the nose? v r gallery? (That’s kind of nice…)
I could also just call the project itself “v r 3: water” and not get quite so precious about the gallery itself being a repeated concept with multiple shows? That would free me up to use different buildings for different shows potentially… hmmm?
I kind of like that…
Okay.
Sorry now I’m thinking in text…
Let me know what you think!
- Use the Judd Marfa building as the gallery, except that I now plan to use two buildings as per the actual site (and as per v r 2)
Yes think the Judd sheds work well. They certainly make it clear that it is not an Art Museum context, and as you say they are beautiful spaces. Of course Judd picked Marfa and had the Dia foundation purchase Fort Russell so he could construct ’large permanent installations’ which, because of the internet’s longevity, you will be doing too - more permanent than Judd’s possibly. …
- Use the Judd Marfa layout of “cubes”, as per v r 2 as well. Each cube will instead be a kind of “plinth” with an inset hollow in the top of it with “water” inside the hollow of one kind of another. Each cube will have a didact on the front where you can read information about the water in the plinth.
Sure you get the irony of using Judd’s ‘cubes’ as plinths. Getting sculpture off the plinth was after all his life’s work! No hierarchy, no frame, no pedestal was the catch cry.
(I kind of like the idea of the formality of this, almost a cross between an art show and a museum-style taxonomy/categorisation of the water forms. Feels helpful to link back to the past project in order to minimise the creative decisions I have to make while pushing through this specific project…)
I like that too
- In the first building there are 24 plinths, each of which has some version of Unity (the game engine) water - that is the built in water you get for free with the engine. It’s called “Water Pro” in fact, which is hilarious. It comes in multiple types: day/night, simple/reflective/refractive, and has many possible settings (colour, speed, distortion, etc.) So that it will be possible to create 24 different versions of the water. This building would them be used to look at/think about the parameterisation of water/technology and how that changes its aesthetics…
Such a great idea. Looking forward to seeing what this ‘water’ looks like …
- In the second building there are another 24 plinths, but in this building the plinths show water that was downloaded and often purchased from the Unity Asset Store, a place to buy virtual assets, including water. Haven’t quite decided if each plinth is a totally different water, or if it’s okay to show multiple versions of water from the same “asset” (they sometimes come with more than one). Here the idea is to point to the idea of an economy of water, the idea of people “making water”, the idea of different aesthetic objectives of water (oceans, low-poly, cartoon, realism), etc.
Same …
That’s where I’m at. Quite a lot to take in (for me too). I’m thinking about a possible wall text or accompanying brochure, but actually I’m reluctant to do the above thinking for the viewer… I’d rather it might occur to them naturally how strange it all is and in what ways?
Think a text ok but only after you have seen the work. …
I suspect I still need a better name for the gallery.
v r 2 gallery?
Like that more. Can easily image a gallery here being called vr2 although more likely without gallery being added in the name. …
Too on the nose? v r gallery? (That’s kind of nice…)
I could also just call the project itself “v r 3: water” and not get quite so precious about the gallery itself being a repeated concept with multiple shows? That would free me up to use different buildings for different shows potentially… hmmm?
Yes, for me, that’s the way to go, they will get it is a gallery/museum whatever. Judd always referred to those two galleries with the big windows as ‘two long buildings’.
Hope that helped (I don’t seem to have added much on re reading).
Remember that in N America ‘galleries’ are commercial dealers OR spaces within institutions. Museums are the public venue. They call the institution at Marfa of which the Judd is part, ‘The Chinati Foundation’ v r 2 sounds far distant to me from what i imagine the experience to be ….
Both feedsbacks very helpful!
Names
Hmmm, names and experiences feels like the big hurdle at this point. Funny how powerful and irritating names can be. I’m still kind of enthused about v r 3: water (perhaps with “v r gallery” written on the building itself)…
The v r 3 label puts it as a sequel to other experiments with virtual reality “art” cross-over stuff, explorations of the nature of virtual spaces and objects. Just as a name for the game itself it’s making some sense to me.
Could even drop “water” possibly and call the overall game v r 3? But then it’s true that it feels like I’m moving away from the bigger idea of a consistent online space with “shows” in it, and more towards individual, separate ideas about games and their objects/technologies… that does lose something…
I kind of like “v r gallery” just because it’s so lame? Like it’s the most obvious name you could give to this gallery, hopelessly descriptive? Or maybe that’s a cop-out…
Also I guess the name “v r gallery” could help to bridge future versions? When I make v r 4, say, with the show that contains a 3D model of a gallery, the building it’s in (if it isn’t the Marfa building) could still be labelled “v r gallery”… since a VR gallery can be whatever form is helpful at the time? Or it could be considered to be a category label… like “this is a VR gallery”, not that it’s “called” “v r gallery”…? Overthinking it?
Plinths
Really enjoyed Jim pointing out the Judd versus Plinths thing, I’d forgotten actually and it is heavily ironic to do this, which I probably like. It would be possible to instead have indented areas in the ground and to put the water there, could be beautiful in a different way, but I suspect the plinths are needed to remind people “this is art” (pace Judd), rather than it being a showroom for water technologies…
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Feels like a great sign that this requires so much reasoning/talk though…
(Can I put your emails into my process document? It would end up “public” at some point though presumably nobody would ever read it… I’m liking the idea of consolidating this stuff into one place, and sometimes I go back through these things myself…)
i think with the title you need to consider your audience. If it’s partly art directed then that makes v r 3 etc very obscure. the game seems to me to be very poetic and rich in visual arts associations. Don’t underplay them. Please!
Hmmmm.
I mean, it is art directed to some extent? But also very much game directed…
I could call the series “v r gallery” and have subtitles for each “show”?
v r gallery: water
v r gallery: gallery
Etc.? Or you find v r gallery underwhelming too?
I was just the good old audience point. To me v r gallery would mean a commercial dealer selling works of virtual reality. I like the subtitle idea and v useful for what will become a series. And certainly gives more weight to the v r gallery label. And in yr head have you reserved the word ‘museum’ for the drawing series? This framing stuff can be so tricky .. except when it’s not
Argh. Well I see what you mean. Hmmmmmmmm.
I’m leaning back toward it just being…
v r 3
The gallery itself can be unnamed, it’s “just another VR project”, but is clearly about museum/gallery-like display of technology (like water), in reference both to contemporary art/sculpture, and to current fixations on technology and fidelity as the measure of “good games” and “game art” etc…
I’ll just avoid the whole idea of having to have it act like a “real gallery” with wall texts and exhibition names etc. altogether. It will just be “apparent”…?
HMMMMM.
agree - keep it oblique with no expectations of museological farming. Wehn we went to Double Negative there wasn’t even a sign to the place …. so
Hah. Yeah, we had a conversation about this over breakfast this morning (I take this all very seriously as you know!) and felt like if someone told us there was a new art space in town called v r 3 we would believe it was legit…
I am just writing a reference for someone who made an exhibition in Zurich called The Buttocks of a Steelmill,so, you know