The Core, The Center, AvantGarden: Labs & Playgrounds

The Core, The Center, AvantGarden: Labs & Playgrounds

The Core

Generative art works (images, sound, audio-visual art); Consultants: Mika Pi and Amber Howard, software engineers 

Production: Ultramono, 2022

The Center

World for VRChat, AI generated images; Digital sculptures from Tanja V’s AvantGarden series.

Custom made 3D objects: Tim Levens (@ThimsterVR), 3D generalist; Mika Pi, software engineer; Additional 3D objects (plants, tea): skmzthx at booth.pm; Optimisation of the VRChat world, interactive elements and lights: *Tera*; AI generated images: DALL·E mini by Boris Dayma (2021–2022); DALL.E 2 by OpenAI; Deafault AV set: Album Bios14 by Tanja Vujinovic; RonBreIan, software and audio engineer; Stevie Lee Price, writer and vocalist, friends from VRChat.

VRChat world link: https://vrchat.com/home/launch?worldId=wrld_12ea2194-f46c-4bf7-afce-121924d5338f

Production: Ultramono, 2022

AvantGarden: Labs & Playgrounds

Series of digital artefacts (images, audio-visual works, generative VR art woorkd); 3D graphics, sound: Tanja V.; Production: Ultramono, 2021

Collaborators: RonBreIan, software collaborator, Arijana Filipić, Department of biotechnology and systemic biology, Kristina Bukač, IT engineer; Prof. George Poinar, Faculty of Sciences, University of Oregon, Dr Jelena Guga, researcher, Dr Vid Podprečan, Department of knowledge technologies, Ivan Stanić, curator and artist; Derrick Schneider, researcher and editor; Production: Ultramono, 2021 and 2022

The Core is a series of audio-visual works inspired by events dedicated to electronic dance music and social engagement of people using avatars, which take place at The Center, a social VR hub that the artist has realised with numerous collaborators. 

The work poses questions regarding current topics: How do we envision the future? How do we envision the process of creating artificial life and our upgraded avatars, and how will the consciousness change under their influence? 

The Center is a VR world stored in VRChat. Using artificial intelligence and the community, we learn more about the history of the building in which The Center is located. Works located at the entrance were created using artificial intelligence, and there is also a series of AvantGarden works that additionally reveal details related to the history of The Center with the help of sculptures, drawings and music.  

Labs & Playgrounds is a compilation of works from the AvantGarden series. It shows a series of worlds filled with proto-machines and other accompanying actors from the network of the Internet of things. Diving between the threads, paths, spheric knots and proto-machine nurseries, we are witnesses of the changeable atmospheric conditions controlled by a multitude of actors. Constant actions of the proto-machines appear in different areas of the metagardens. They can be parts of larger distillation mechanisms, refineries of basic elements, quantum computer mega devices, amalgam factories, crystal nurseries, cloud regulators, dew collectors, plasma reactors of a field nanopipe farm. Meditative and playful, the maps expand our knowledge of the world in which we live and remind us that our humanity comes from the culture that we have been building for centuries.