FIELD NOTES: SOURCE
Over the last few days I spent time outdoors, moving between lakes, forests and the coast.
Water, trees, birds, dragonflies, plants, reflections, changing light.
It made me think again about some of the earliest virtual worlds I built and about the natural forms, rhythms and structures that have remained present throughout my work.
The first Spheres grew from this interest. Gardens became spatial structures. Plants, water, organic forms and biomimetic systems became elements for building temporary zones for exploration and reflection. Transparent structures, floating forms and proto-machines created spaces that could be entered, explored and experienced as changing digital terrains.
This interest has continued through different forms and scales, alongside research into avatars, virtual communities, Internet culture, artificial identities, technological environments and the ways we experience ourselves through images, devices and networks.
AVANTGARDEN developed these ideas through virtual worlds, moving image, synthetic organisms and speculative habitats. SYNTHSPA brought them into a different kind of system, exploring recalibration, artificial wellness, synthetic materials, sound and systems of self-maintenance. COLONY pushed the research into replication, artificial identities and the production of a new visual culture.
Now I am developing the concluding phase of SYNTHSPA around water, light, plants, transparent structures, synthetic organisms and sound.
The new works bring together virtual spaces, moving image, 3D sculpture, AI-generated imagery, collage, drawing and watercolor. My ongoing work with composite portraits also continues here through shifting forms that draw from botanical, animal, anatomical and synthetic references.
The new SYNTHSPA space is being rebuilt in VRChat as a place of flowing structures, reflections, organic forms and artificial life. Earlier ideas return in new configurations, alongside new forms developed specifically for this project.
I am calling this concluding phase SOURCE.
SOURCE brings together many of the things that have been present throughout the practice: nature and technology, artificial and organic forms, virtual space, sound, perception, imagination and the question of what it means to live among increasingly interconnected systems.
The fountain is not a destination.
It is where things come from.
