Virtual Reality as an Art Form

It’s a whole new world of artistic possibilities. A Friends’ Preview Evening at the Royal Academy of Arts introduced me to virtual reality as a new art form. Virtually Real displays 6 months of project work by 3 Royal Academy students using HTC Vive. 

HTC Headset and controls

Each participant at the preview had their own headset and HTC helper. The headset was a snug and comfortable. It remained firmly in place throughout the experience. I also had two handsets. They felt very much like Wii game controls. Swiping revealed additional virtual functionality.

First virtual artwork

It took some adjustment to understand that I could move 360 degrees around the first virtual world as well as forward, back, up and down. At one point, I felt obstructed by virtual black and white poles. At another point, the ground cut completely away from underneath me. My brain told me that I should be falling. I couldn’t see my feet on the floor. My reactions were in slow motion.

At the end of the first experience, I painted virtual reality objects as if daubing them with graffiti. They were suspended in the air. I moved to access different sides. My movements must have looked odd to anyone without a headset.

Virtual Martian world

The second experience of the evening was my favourite. I was transported into a Martian-type landscape. The sand was blowing in a wind at ground level, yet I could not feel the slightest breeze. The starry sky above made me stare up in wonder.

I noticed some large blue insect-like creatures moving in a line in the mid-distance. It was like a scene out of Star Wars or Walking with Dinosaurs. Next, I became aware of 5 naked human forms dancing just in front of them. They did not interact with each other, or even show an awareness of each other. I was like a ghost within the scene - or sometimes within a visible blue cage-like structure.

I would have been quite happy just admiring the alien landscape. The changing night sky from day to night fascinated me. I also had music in my ears cutting me off from the real world. I watched as bone-like structures moved from the ground into the air and turned into singing mouths. An abstract painting come to life and sound.

Google Tilt Brush

The final experience involved having a go at virtual reality painting for myself using Google’s Tilt Brush. I felt like I was back in my primary school days wielding a large dollop of paint with an overly thick brush. My aerial artwork was little more than a squiggle. My scribble evolved into a multi-coloured logo. I tried to do an insect. My admiration for the RA’s student artists increased. I would need a lot longer than 6 months to reach even an amateurish level.

Disorientation

The experience was soon over. The headset came off. I felt disorientated. My brain needed time to catch up. Others had apparently tripped and fallen afterwards. I suppose some people are more susceptible than others. I could see that these virtual worlds could become as addictive as online games - if not more so.

Future possibilities and responsibilties

This technological art is very much in its infancy. It felt immature at times. Inspiration seemed to come from gaming and science fiction films. No doubt both tools and artistry will become more refined, leading to greater control and detail in future. There is much more room for creativity. The experience could be more emotive. Paul Delaroche’s huge picture of Lady Jane Grey’s Execution in the National Gallery came to mind. That painting is moving in 2D; it could be overwhelming in virtual reality.

Amber flag. Virtual reality artists will need to explore the medium responsibly. They should steer clear of, or be ultra-careful with, gruesome or adult content. There is room for increased interactivity within the picture. It could be terrifying to find yourself inside a graphic horror scene.

I would build on the experiences that inspired admiration and awe. Perhaps recreate the landscapes that we know are disappearing in the world? No doubt a great master or two will emerge and develop the new art form in ways we cannot even conceive of now. How would such artworks be handed down to posterity? How do we ensure that any masterpieces will still be accessible as technology develops?

Back in the Real World

I wandered through the other rooms. Some pieces had been printed in 3D. They seemed flat. I barely noticed the 2D paintings on the walls. Discounting waiting time, my experience lasted just under half an hour. Yet I was disorientated. It would be hard to see a whole gallery in virtual reality. Maybe we would become more acclimatised?

I was so distracted by my virtual world experiences that I missed my stop for home in the real world.

Karen Andrews is a freelance French to English translator, transcreator, content writer and editor. She has a strong background in global marketing.

Email Karen for further information via karenanglicityen@gmail.com in French, German or English.

Painting the Modern Garden

Painting the Modern Garden at the Royal Academy of Arts

A growing interest in art and an interest in growing. The Royal Academy of Arts killed two birds with one stone* for me by staging its exhibition Painting the Modern Garden: Monet to Matisse. A day of gardening and art rolled into one. 

Popular Exhibition
This exhibition is so popular that nearly every available time slot was booked. Thank goodness for being a freelancer. I worked at the weekend and went on a Monday instead. I also had opportunity to attend a lunchtime talk by Professor Clare Willsdon of the University of Glasgow on The Art of Horticulture - painting and planting the "modern garden".

Early Love revisited
My love of Impressionism started at the University of Birmingham. In the first year of my French course, I had the opportunity to study French art. Monet and Manet were my favourites then. My interest deepened by seeing some of the actual paintings at the Musée d’Orsay in Paris. 

Up close
Monet's work was at the centre of this exhibition. I was amazed at how many excellent and famous paintings the Royal Academy had managed to bring together. I was thrilled to get up close to the paintings. I could admire the brush strokes and technique, then stand back to get the full impression. 

Monet the Gardener
I had no idea beforehand that Monet was anything more than an amateur gardener. I loved the way the Royal Academy captured the extent of his enthusiasm and botanical knowledge by sharing his books.

It was great to read his faded letters in French. The famous water lily paintings might have been denied to the world if he had not succeeded in his appeal to build his pond. His enthusiasm for gardening strayed into obsession:

"He reads more catalogues and horticultural price lists 

than articles on aesthetics"  

 (Journalist of Monet in 1897)

In advance, I had expected to see an exhibition of paintings that I would love. I had no inkling beforehand that this exhibition would capture what gardening means to me. In the words of Paul Klee:

"My mind is clearest and freshest 

and I often experience the most captivating moods, 

even moments of great joy, 

when I am tending the plants in my garden...".

This is a feeling I can now describe with the German word "Gartengluck" - a feeling of happiness that overcomes you in the garden.

Old Boots
It was a great touch to include Nicholson's painting of Gertrude Jekyll's gardening boots. Seeing one sole falling apart brought a smile to my face. There is no need to get dressed up in the garden. You can get lost in reverie with no one to judge your muddy fingers, dishevelled hair or clothes that have seen a better day.

Historical Context
Professor Willsdon presentation gave the exhibition historical and botanical context. The 19th and early 20th centuries were a very special time in gardening. The flowers in the paintings were exotic. Monet's blue water lilies required great care to overwinter.

Flowers were seen as "decoration". Some scoffed that these painter gardeners should grow more useful plants like potatoes. Another was ridiculed as the painter of cabbages. 

Clare Willsdon explained that the three key developments of the time were:

• Hybridisation - illustrated by the paintings of chrysanthemums, dahlias, peonies and exotic water lilies in the exhibition
• Cases with sealed glass to import exotic plants 
• Advent of greenhouses to look after exotic plants 

A Passion shared
Gardening was very much a passion that Monet shared with other friends and painters. Monet's friends described him as a different person in his garden than the bad-tempered man encountered in Paris. 

Monet's Garden at Giverny with its famous bridge and pond

Clare Willsdon explained Monet's passion for irises and their connection to his late wife. The profusion of irises under the trees in The Artist's Garden at Giverny (detail) of 1900 takes on greater meaning in this context. They speak of his love.

Iris 

So while few people appear in the various exhibition paintings, much emotion is conveyed in them nonetheless. Monet's weeping willows portray the anguish at the loss of life from the guns he could hear in the distance during the First World War.

It wasn't all about Monet or even French artists. The exhibition introduced me to a number of new artists. Max Liebermann, Emil Nolde and Santiago Rusiñol particularly caught my eye. I loved Rusiñol's extraordinary Glorieta II.

How do you end such an exhibition on a high? The Royal Academy succeeded by bringing together Monet's triptych of water lilies from 3 different American museums. It had the wow factor.

Now, I simply have to find a way to see Giverny, Monet's living work of art in person. It will complete my journey from gardening to art and from art to a very special garden.



For my international readers, a link to the meaning of the English idiom used above:
*killing two birds with one stone

Karen Andrews runs
Anglicity Ltd. She is a 

French to English
translator and 
transcreator.  She is

also an English 
copywriter and

multilingual digital 
marketer.

For further information see
Anglicity's website

Tricky Attributions

Friday was frustrating. A sudden unexplained spike in the analytics for an old blog revealed a copy pirate. Research lead to further discoveries in the murky waters of SEO and Google Analytics.

My blogging efforts were being redirected to another site. Grr!

The site even claimed to be “honest”. Double grr!

It was by no means certain that Google would give my site precedence. Triple grr!

In a black mood, I was glad to get out for the evening. I headed for some Italian culture at the Royal Academy of Arts. Little did I realise that that the tricky theme of attribution was to continue…

Venetian Artists

The Royal Academy of Arts is currently showing the works of early 16^th century Venetian artists. The exhibition is entitled “In the Age of Giorgione”. Our expert guide explained that all the paintings in the collection had been attributed to Giorgione at some time.

Art detective work lead to reflections on attributing and crediting translators and copywriters for their online work. Let me explain…

Guided Tour

Our guide explained that pretty much everything we know about Giorgione could be written on the back of a postage stamp. We know that he was born in Castelfranco Veneto. We don’t know the exact date, although we believe somewhere around 1478. We know that he lived and worked in Venice. He died in his early thirties, probably of the plague. 

The collection brings together paintings from a 10-year period in Venetian art. There was a whole new generation of artists. If we cannot be sure exactly which paintings are Giorgione’s, we do know that he had a new approach that influenced the others.

New Approach

Giorgione introduced a new focus on the sitter’s hands. He painted symbolic objects to reflect the sitter’s personality. There was an attempt to depict the sitter’s state of mind and introduce a narrative element. His paintings do not show underdrawings. Instead he painted directly onto the canvas while watching the sitter. As a result, his portraits give us the feeling of capturing a real individual. They do not stare absently into the distance. Our eyes meet.

False Attributions

Our guide drew our attention to the addition of landscapes into drawings. He stressed how some figures depicted are set within the landscape, rather than it merely being a backdrop. In the past, the presence of a landscape meant that paintings were attributed to Giorgione. In the 1900s a hundred paintings were attributed to him, now just 40.

Clarity is difficult. A list of 15 works was drawn up 15 years after his death. Only 3 descriptions are recognisable. We know some paintings were lost or are in too poor a condition to act as good verification. We know he shared a studio. We are told that he fell out with Titian. Unfortunately, the source is considered suspect and only offers a one-sided viewpoint.

Two of the gallery paintings demonstrated the difficulties of attribution very well. The altarpiece of the Virgin and Child with Saint Peter and Saint Mark and a Donor showed three different styles. The most engaging characters are Saint Peter and Saint Mark looking at each other. The donor in the foreground looks wooden by contrast and the way his hands touch the baby’s foot looks awkward. The Madonna and child lack the finesse of the two saints. Even worse is the shadow of a figure that is not even in the painting. This is a panel attributed to Bellini. It is part of a missing triptych and evidently the work of more than one artist of varying talent.

Ah, but it gets worse… Il Tramonto turns out to be a hotchpotch of paintings. A nightmare restoration.

Judge for yourself

At the end of his talk, our guide invited us to look again at all the paintings and ignore the attributions in the labels alongside. Compare the paintings. Is it possible for one artist to change his style so much in just 5 years?

Translation Memory

I found the guided tour intriguing. As I came away, I couldn’t help thinking about all the discussions in the translation world over who owns a translation memory. When a translation is divided up for the sake of speed, it often ends up like Bellini’s Virgin and the Child. Good in parts, but even the good parts are spoilt by the failure to maintain a consistent style. Some translations can end up like Il Tramonto – a case of too many cooks spoilt the broth.

Creative Influence

Creativity is generally a singular rather than a collective activity. A consensus approach can kill creativity. However, the creativity of one artist, translator or writer can inspire the creativity of another. While Giorgione died young, Titian was influenced by him and went on to develop some of his ideas.

Digital Attribution

Returning to the modern digital world, I love how one blog can influence a whole series of others. I hope that genuine authors will get the credit for their ideas and work, rather than the “pirates”.

At the AsLing 2015 Conference, Jaap van der Meer of TAUS mentioned that Oracle are working on a system that could identify the effectiveness of individual phrases. Now, it strikes me that this might identify exactly who is responsible for the copy with the most effective sales conversions. Such attributions could lead to fairer remuneration or a “bonus” for the best in the profession. The best work will be known, attributable and visible.

Karen Andrews runs
Anglicity Ltd. She is an 
entrepreneurial French
to English translator,
transcreator, copywriter,
and digital marketer.

For further information see
Anglicity's website