We are pleased to announce the artists for the MORPHOS Dome Artists in Residence for September/October 2016 in Fort Collins and Denver, Colorado. After reviewing highly compelling applications, artists selected will join in the month long exploration of the immersive digital space, known as digital dome or fulldome. Artists will work together to receive five days of hands on training in creating work on the digital dome and virtual reality (VR). Artists will engage in developing their proposed works of art throughout the month with help from leaders in the dome industry and local artists. MORPHOS will be presented to live audiences as an interactive, exploratory play on innovation in immersive experiences on Friday, October 7, 2016 at the Fort Collins OtterBox Digital Dome and Monday, October 10 at Gates Planetarium in Denver, Colorado. (Stay tuned to our blog for ticket information coming soon.)
This public digital dome show will include curated work submitted from artists around the world, live performance by the creative studio Alt Ethos, as well as work by our artists-in-residence. We have great passion for what it means to allow more people access to dome technology and expanding what genres of content are explored in this unique environment. Welcome those who are participating in the MORPHOS Digital Dome Artist-In-Residence 2016 who are becoming leaders in this movement of immersive media.
MORPHOS Dome Artist in Residence 2016:
Please welcome the MORPHOS Dome Artist in Residence 2016 selected artists, the ever so talented; Liam Somerville (Australia), Drake Arnold (Colorado), Jodi Stuart (Colorado/New Zealand), Jonathan Womack (Washington), and Sam Stevens (Colorado)
Please take a moment to review their artist profiles below.
Liam Somerville (Australia)
website: http://www.capitalwastepictures.com/
Liam Somerville is a Adelaide, Australia based film-maker with strong DIY tendencies and embraces the fuzzy, analogue visuals. Liam started Capital Waste Pictures in early 2012 after graduating from a UniSA Bachelor of Digital Media that same year. Liam has directed, produced, shot and edited many strange advertisements, immersive dome films, wild music film clips, nonsense webisode series’, arts and culture web videos, moving documentaries and other moving visual stimuli. His proposed work for MORPHOS is to create a fully immersive technicolour tropical wonderland as a ‘fly-through’ of a fantasy, analog, tropical heaven. There will be sunny beachscapes, friendly beach goers, sunbathing skeletons, fishing boats, umbrellas, wild animals and plenty of palm trees. The aim is to create a completely impossible and unreal environment. Influenced by poorly made, early Geocities Websites where they present an almost pointless amount of low quality gif pictures this artwork is a sort of moving digital diorama. The digital assets will be created through sampling old VHS tapes or shooting asset footage.
Drake Arnold (Colorado)
website: http://www.drakearnold.com/
Drake Arnold is an artist working primarily in acrylic paint and digital media. He makes work that falls loosely between many genres, such as; psychedelic, fantasy, visionary, & surreal. Drake studied music composition at College of Central Florida in Ocala, Florida, where he was also born and raised. He later went on to get his Bachelor of Fine Arts degree from the University of Tampa in Digital Art. Upon graduation, he worked as a graphics and motion designer creating corporate training animation videos for fortune 500 companies. His proposed work for MORPHOS is to create a short film for fulldome and VR as an abstracted narrative telling an ambiguous story through the imagery of his paintings and visual artwork. Some of the central themes of the film would involve “finding a balance between nature vs technology”, “integrating the past with our future”, and “creating a better vision of tomorrow”.
Jodi Stuart (Colorado/ New Zealand)
website: http://www.jodistuart.com
Jodi Stuart was born in 1971 and grew up in a small town on the East Coast of New Zealand. She attained a Bachelor of Visual Arts from Manukau Institute of Technology, Auckland in 1999, and an MFA from Auckland University in 2001. Jodi moved to the United States with her family in 2010 and currently lives in Denver where she recently completed a two year artist-in-residence at RedLine Contemporary Art Center. Her work explores aspects of virtuality/physicality, place and presence through the view finders of new technologies. Her proposed work for MORPHOS is to bring an intense visceral/tactile viewer experience into this virtual medium. She will be inserting the body visually, through the use of appropriated imagery, as well as, experientially, through referencing the abject. By using Blender 3D application she seeks to create an incoherent virtual landscape that is full of glitches and is baffling and disorienting.
Jonathan Womack (Washington)
website: http://www.jinx75livevisuals.com/
Jonathan Womack a video artist living in Seattle, WA, working in a variety of formats and themes. His focus the last 4 years has been on generative and interactive video installation, while maintaining his love for analog systems and feedback patterns. He has shown work at Interstitial Gallery, CoCA and Cairo galleries, and have worked for Decibel Festival as a VJ and producer for the past 5 years. His proposed project for MORPHOS is an exploration of this new world of continuous surveillance, through our own selfies, security cameras, and the newly arriving gestural, interactive systems. He would like to help keep the conversation going about what this does to our sense of identity, and whether we can use this new technology to move art into new public arenas they could not exist in before, rather than solely becoming tools for marketing and advertising. Full-dome visuals allow a fully immersive environment to explore, test and build such ideas.
Sam Stevens (Colorado)
website: www.ijourneyedvr.com
Sam Stevens is an artist whose goal and dream is to share inspiration, healing, peace and love. His focus is on creating spherical panoramic photography with the hope to bring back the viewer’s nostalgic memories and “Dreams Lost In Time”. His artwork is made to reflect both the dream world and different perspectives of reality. Sam’s art recreates the most precious dreams and experiences of his life in hopes of bringing the audience to recall their own experiences. His proposed project for MORPHOS is a nature-based virtual media and meditative entertainment to reconnect the audience with high definition, immersive nature based environments for inspiration, healing and relaxation.
The MORPHOS Artist in Residence was developed to help provide artists with the rare opportunity to have access to a digital dome while being trained and supported to create their work. It is our goal to diversify creative content for a growing audience while allowing artists to help spearhead this new technology as we move into a next level of the digital age.
SPECIAL THANKS to our SPONSORS:
WHY SPONSOR?
MORPHOS was created through dedicated and passion to help move this immersive media forward. Due to the high costs of such an endeavor, artists are required to pay for their participation and artist in residence staff work for reduced pay or volunteer. We are still in need of some supplies, operating funds, and equipment in order to make MORPHOS Dome Artist in Residence 2015 a complete success. A portion of the sponsorship funds will go directly to help the artists cover their expenses. Questions?
For more information on the MORPHOS Fulldome Artist-In-Residence please see www.DenverArtsTech.org. We will be opening applications for the 2017 MORPHOS Dome Artist in Residence sometime soon after this year’s event. Keep posted by following our Blog.
