'Cathedrals': virtual-reality film screening + Q&A
Invisible Landscapes
Tuesday 19 March 2019 5 - 7.30pm
The Architecture Studio, The Dorfman Senate Rooms, Burlington Gardens, Royal Academy of Arts
Free, no booking required
Invisible Landscapes
Media partner
Join us for a special screening of virtual-reality film 'Cathedrals', and a conversation with the film's director, Rick Farin.
Enter the otherworldly universe of Cathedrals, a new virtual-reality film by digital artist Rick Farin that explores the dynamic relationship between technology, spirituality and nature. Experienced through a virtual-reality headset and led by a 3D-scanned oracle performed by musician Gaika, the audience will travel to another world through myriad dystopian futuristic scenarios, from the caves of Lascaux to a gothic cathedral or a primeval forest.
Cathedrals is an immersive film created by NOWNESS in partnership with the Royal Academy of Arts in response to Invisible Landscapes: Imagination (Act III). Act III questions the materiality of our digital devices and minds, presenting a world in which the computer and nature are synthesized together on a cellular level. Follow the oracle as he guides you through a series of landscapes infected by a neural-net generated virus, trained on religious iconography and images of microchips, producing digital dioramas in which to revere the symbiotic relationship between technology, thought and nature.
The event will start with a special VR screening of Cathedrals, followed by a conversation at 7pm with filmmaker Rick Farin and Bunny Kinney, Editorial Director of Dazed Media and NOWNESS.
Invisible Landscapes
Discover how digital technologies are transforming our lives and everyday environments in a series of projects inside the RA’s new Architecture Studio. We're inviting practice-based researchers to present new work through three interconnected acts, addressing how architecture can respond and engage with emerging contemporary issues around technology, and suggesting new ways of being, belonging and living.