Munich/Warsaw. This year’s edition of “BMW Art Club.
The Future is Art” will feature the first Polish presentation of the
VR experience EVOLVER. The immersive, multimedia work of art, created
by London-based art collective Marshmallow Laser Feast, uses an
innovative fusion of art, science and modern technology to drop
audiences deep inside the landscape of the body, following the flow of
oxygen through our branching ecosystem, to a single “breathing” cell.
The project was created in collaboration with various prominent
cultural figures, with narration by Cate Blanchett, and a score
featuring music from Radiohead’s Jonny Greenwood, amongst others. The
premiere of EVOLVER in the Opera Gallery of the Polish National Opera
has been set for October 12, 2023. The exhibition will be open until
December 10.
Artistic dimension of science
Science and art
give expression to the same human need – the need to understand and
describe the world. EVOLVER is a free-roaming, immersive deep dive
that takes viewers through the processes that sustain all life. The
all-encompassing VR experience takes us on a journey through the
microcosm of the human body, which simultaneously acts as the
macrocosm of nature. Exploring structures hidden far beneath the skin,
viewers are taken through a sequence of breathing, visualizing the
very essence of life itself, as air travels from the mouth into the
lungs, before circulating around the complex rivers of our
cardiovascular system and back out into the natural world.
Marshmallow Laser Feast (MLF) seek to highlight the
common denominator between scientific precision and the emotional
experience of art. Placing audiences at the centre of these ecosystems
aims to bring them closer to an understanding of our interconnectedness.
Key contribution was brought to EVOLVER by invited artists and
consultants from prestigious scientific centres. The executive
producer is director Terrence Malick, a living
cinematic legend, the author of such classics as “Badlands”, “The Thin
Red Line”, and “The Tree of Life”. EVOLVER features the powerful voice
of actress Cate Blanchett and contributions from poet
Daisy Lafarge and Radiohead’s guitarist
Jonny Greenwood. EVOLVER’s score also features
musical pieces by the vocal innovator Meredith Monk,
Golden Globe-winning composer Jóhann Jóhannsson, the
composer, pianist and accordion player Howard
Skempton, and musician and electronic music producer
Jon Hopkins.
The creation of EVOLVER would not be possible without the support of
scientists from a range of centres researching the human body. They
kept tabs on the quality of every detail of the scans of the human
body used by the artists and reproduced in virtual reality. Scientific
consultants of the project include Fraunhofer Institute for
Digital Medicine MEVIS, The Allen Institute for Cell Science
and Buck Institute for Research on Ageing.
“When building EVOLVER, the artists from MLF were trying to strike
balance between different dimensions: aesthetic, scientific, visual
and auditory, to create a virtual universe which is both true and
beautiful, which appeals to the senses and emotions, which opens a
space for an intellectual reflection”, points out Stach
Szabłowski, the curator of “BMW Art Club. The Future is Art”.
A visionary experience for the senses
Since the
very first edition, “BMW Art Club. The Future is Art” explores those
fields of culture where the combination of art and technology gives
birth to new ideas, answers to the challenges of the present day as
well as visions of the future. This year’s edition touches upon the
issue that has been central for the whole cycle: how new technologies
can enhance the capabilities of artists and our understanding of the
contemporary world with the place which humans occupy in it.
EVOLVER presented in the Opera Gallery is a
technologically advanced visionary experience for the senses. It
begins with a ten-minute audio meditation in a specially designed
relaxation space. Spectators are invited to decompress, guided by the
voice of Cate Blanchett. In the next room, they proceed to take part
in a VR experience, accompanied by a monumental, multidimensional
video screening. With VR googles on, they embark on a twenty-minute
virtual journey through the human body, following the flow of oxygen,
as it is taken into the lungs and travels to its final destination –
an individual cell of the body – a living microcosm, which reflects
the structure of the whole universe. The third part of EVOLVER – the
epilogue – encourages reflection over the recent experience. It takes
the form of a gallery, presenting digital pieces created by the
members of Marshmallow Laser Feast and a film expanding on the
narrative of the exhibition.
“Audiovisual technologies, such as VR, can be used to escape reality
or to delve deep in artificial worlds far away from real-life
problems. But the same technologies can be used to an opposing effect.
New digital tools allow us not only to perceive, but also to get to
know and understand the world in a way which not long ago was hardly
imaginable”, stresses Barnaby Steel, co-founder of Marshmallow
Laser Feast.
The Polish premiere of EVOLVER is supported by Morele GeForce RTX
Studio PCs, equipped with GeForce RTX 4080 GPUs and certified
by NVIDIA. They are part of the NVIDIA Studio platform,
aimed at artists, designers, engineers and other professionals who
need powerful tools to work with graphics, video or virtual reality.
The platform includes high-performance graphics cards, specialised
software, and dedicated Studio drivers that deliver optimal
performance and stability with the most popular 3D graphics, video,
and animation software. The entire system has been created
specifically for professional graphics applications, which include
real-time ray traced rendering or support for AI technologies.
The world premiere of EVOLVER project took place at Tribeca Film
Festival 2022 in New York. The exhibition presented as part of
“BMW Art Club. The Future is Art” in the Opera Gallery of the Polish
National Opera in Warsaw will be open from October 12 until December
10, 2023.
The patron of the project – BMW – opens all the screenings to general
audience for free. Open registration at https://butik.teatrwielki.pl
and https://teatrwielki.pl or
at the ticket office of the National Opera, Teatr
Wielki from September 12.
More information about the “BMW Art Club. The Future is Art” can be
found at www.bmw.pl/artclub.
