Matthieu Vanier: Habitats
Curator: Samuel Arsenault-Brassard, ELLEPHANT VR artist and curator
Visitors choose their own path through different sets of majestic, minimalist shapes, a world composed of post-physical pseudo-architectural assemblies.
The piece changes throughout the exposition. At the beginning of the exposition, the world is orderly, clean and controlled. As the show progresses, the world fragments, becoming more chaotic, it moves in unpredictable ways. This time-based corruption creates a continuously changing landscape and a narrative that shifts chronologically. Visitors are encouraged to try the experience multiple times per visit and to visit multiple times. With each trip, visitors live through a familiar world in evolution.
The experience itself suggests dephysicalization, we are no longer physical bodies within a world, rather spirits floating through a digital mindscape. For these brief moments, we become light, color, sound, a landscape of ancient entities in eternal confluence. We perceive a soft cycle of creation and destruction, the pulse of a cosmic breath.
