Video games, landscape etchings and experimental film are among more than 200 projects from the next generation of graduate artists and designers exhibiting at this year's UNSW Art & Design ANNUAL.
A new wave of artistic talent will be on display at this year’s UNSW Art & Design's ANNUAL, Australia's biggest showcase of graduate contemporary art, design and creative media work.
More than 200 projects will be exhibited across six venues, with work covering disciplines such as painting, sculpture, photography, printmaking, textile design, installation, animation, photography, printmaking and, for the first time, virtual reality.
As the art and technology worlds merge closer together, Lucy Ogden Doyle’s work Auroria sits at the centre of the two, using immersive and interactive elements to take viewers inside futuristic forests and uninhabited swamplands.
Ogden Doyle’s project explores three different simulations, each with varying degrees of gameplay: design your own garden, navigate sparse swamps or relax in a lush forest.
Lucy Ogden-Doyle's Auroria. Image: Supplied
Auroria, which will be exhibited in the new Virtual Reality Lab at Paddington's Makerspace, engages users through atmosphere and interactivity, allowing them to wander freely through each interconnecting environment.
Interpretations of nature of another kind underpin artist Douglas Schofield's painting, ceramics and printmaking practice.
Schofield, a Bachelor of Fine Arts graduate, uses techniques such as intaglio etching to represent garden spaces, a resurgence in plant-growing culture and the new geological epoch, the Anthropocene, an era defined by the human impact on the planet.
"These bodies of work can operate individually, but communicate more complex ideas about natural environments when presented as a cohesive installation," said Schofield. "A practice in intaglio etching reflects a resurgence in interior design and plant-growing culture that incorporates nature into our built environments."
Doug Schofield's Freesia Bulbs Have Come Good. The Air is Full of Sweet. Image: Supplied
Doug Schofield's Windowsill Garden. Image: Supplied
Designer Leo Tsao’s project, Things are Queer, is a two-part experimental film that draws on Tsao’s personal experiences as "a queer, gender non-conforming person of colour, with the aim to challenge the materialist transphobic framework".
“These queer phenomenological experiences aim to disorientate to create new forms of perception on the embodied relationships between the immaterial and material, the body and gender,” said Tsao.
Still from Leo Tsao's Things Are Queer. Image: Supplied
Bachelor of Media Arts graduate Amy Buchan's work, The Last Bison reflects her research into how video games can serve as an art form through an immersive 3D environment that users can explore and enjoy.
“The environment itself presents a land that has been devastated by an unknown catastrophe, and users can explore and investigate clues hidden in the scenery to piece together the history of the world around them,” said Buchan. “Contributing to a sense of freedom, the user can befriend and ride a giant bison creature to move through the environment.”
The Last Bison follows the technical conventions of a video game with a particular focus on creating a sense of immersion and engagement with the viewer, and blurring the lines between games and art.
Amy Buchan's The Last Bison. Image: Supplied
Amy Buchan's The Last Bison. Image: Supplied
UNSW Art & Design Graduate Exhibition
Opening Event: Tuesday 28 November, 5–9pm. Register here.
Exhibition: Wednesday 29 November – Saturday 9 December 2017
A&D Annual Screening
Date: Friday 1 December, 7–9.30pm
Where: UNSW Art & Design, Paddington Courtyard
RSVP: Friday 25 November. Register here.