Dorian in Eternal Midlife Crisis

a still from a fixed vantage point virtual reality piece made in a 3D software called Blender and embedded in a wall and engulfed by thick black curtains. It uses a simple stereographic technology available as an attachment to a phone (I used the original Google Cardboard attachment). The installation serves as a peephole into a small virtual room lit only by a swaying gas lamp where Oscar Wilde’s infamous fictional character Dorian Gray, known for trading his mortality with a portrait of himself, slowly and pathetically stabs at the painting, which, unmarred by the attempts, envelops the knife and ripples in response. The stereoscopic video is on loop. The audio heard faintly from within the room is a song called “Goodbye Little Yellow Bird” sung by the Angela Lansbury in the 1945 American film adaptation of the novel. The original portrait I sampled for this piece was also commissioned for the 1945 film and painted by Ivan Albright.a still from a fixed vantage point virtual reality piece made in a 3D software called Blender and embedded in a wall and engulfed by thick black curtains. It uses a simple stereographic technology available as an attachment to a phone (I used the original Google Cardboard attachment). The installation serves as a peephole into a small virtual room lit only by a swaying gas lamp where Oscar Wilde’s infamous fictional character Dorian Gray, known for trading his mortality with a portrait of himself, slowly and pathetically stabs at the painting, which, unmarred by the attempts, envelops the knife and ripples in response. The stereoscopic video is on loop. The audio heard faintly from within the room is a song called “Goodbye Little Yellow Bird” sung by the Angela Lansbury in the 1945 American film adaptation of the novel. The original portrait I sampled for this piece was also commissioned for the 1945 film and painted by Ivan Albright.a still from a fixed vantage point virtual reality piece made in a 3D software called Blender and embedded in a wall and engulfed by thick black curtains. It uses a simple stereographic technology available as an attachment to a phone (I used the original Google Cardboard attachment). The installation serves as a peephole into a small virtual room lit only by a swaying gas lamp where Oscar Wilde’s infamous fictional character Dorian Gray, known for trading his mortality with a portrait of himself, slowly and pathetically stabs at the painting, which, unmarred by the attempts, envelops the knife and ripples in response. The stereoscopic video is on loop. The audio heard faintly from within the room is a song called “Goodbye Little Yellow Bird” sung by the Angela Lansbury in the 1945 American film adaptation of the novel. The original portrait I sampled for this piece was also commissioned for the 1945 film and painted by Ivan Albright.a medium close-up shot of the Google cardboard device embedded in a black wall and surrounded by black curtains. The viewer uses this as a peephole to peer into the virtual reality experience, made possible by stereoscopic image technology on a phone.

 

(4 images)

 

This is a fixed vantage point virtual reality piece made in a 3D software called Blender and embedded in a wall and engulfed by thick black curtains. It serves as a peephole into a small blank room lit only by a swaying gas lamp where Oscar Wilde’s infamous fictional character Dorian Gray, known for trading his mortality with a portrait of himself, slowly and pathetically stabs at the painting, which, unmarred by the attempts, envelops the knife and ripples in response. I was interested in preserving the moment where mortality transfers from the painting back to the human it depicts. The audio heard faintly from within the room is a song called “Goodbye Little Yellow Bird” sung by the Angela Lansbury in the 1945 American film adaptation of the novel. The original portrait I sampled for this piece was also commissioned for the 1945 film and painted by Ivan Albright.