far field is a collaborative work by Anna Henson and multidisciplinary performance duo, slowdanger (Anna Thompson & Taylor Knight). The work is accessible via VR headset and desktop/mobile, experienced inside the 3D online platform, Mozilla Hubs.
far field was shown in two iterations - as an immersive online web XR experience in Mozilla Hubs during the quarantine period of the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020, and as an interactive VR experience at the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts as part of the show, LENS, curated by Ben Levine and Extreme Lengths Productions.
far field is an embodied archive of the project collaborator’s experiences during the COVID-19 pandemic. Altered Zoom meetings and personally recorded video fill the virtual space, filtered through algorithmic and textural processes. This environment-as-diary renders our bodies-as-texture within shifting and shared architectures, both physical and virtual.
During this process, we set ourselves these prompts: What signals, waves and resonance will you only be able to perceive at a distance? How does our closeness to this moment and technology fragment our embodied experiences and ability to perceive what is happening to ourselves? Can we have patience with this accumulative process of images, frames, concepts coming slowly into focus?
For the VR experience, dancers co-created their own personal avatar in collaboration with character designer, H. D. Harris. Dancers perform as these avatars, as well as themselves through 2D+Depth video. Audiences witness a collective dance ritual, choose sigils, and are transported to experience an intimate one-on-one performance with each dancer within an immersive environment.
Credits: Created by slowdanger (Anna Thompson and Taylor Knight) and Anna Henson. Performance, sound and filming collaborators: Maxi Canion, Symara Johnson, taylor knight, anna thompson and Anna Wotring. Avatars created by H.D. Harris. Creative Technology: Anna Henson and Dimitri Diakopolous
For link to the Hubs gallery, please contact me.
Far Field virtual reality experience captured in Windows Mixed Reality headset. Exhibited at the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in 2021.
Far Field Virtual Reality Experience Exhibited at the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts
Trailer for far field, a virtual gallery inside Mozilla Hubs. This trailer documents the user experience inside the immersive virtual video installation.