Thursday 14 April 2011

Igloo: Games and Installation Art

This week I was fortunate enough to stumble upon the work of artists Ruth Gibson & Bruno Martelli a.k.a. igloo who, in their own words create installations, video works, online projects & performances which have been shown in galleries and festivals worldwide.

Their installation VISITOR is currently at the Djangoly Gallery, Nottingham. Inspired by experiences of the Canadian Rockies, VISITOR fuses art and games, with part of the installation Vermilion Lake comprising a full-scale replica of a trappers cabin housing an interactive virtual environment navigated by visitors by the physical means of a rowing boat.



This is a fascinating and hugely creative use of game technology to engage with real and imagined landscape in a visually and physically involving way.  In the words of Richard Ducker Curator of the Fieldgate Gallery "The worlds they create are total simulacrums: there is no separation between the invented & the real, the site & the represented, the local & the imagined...Their work engages the particular of the site while undermining its place, the original & point of departure become one in a conceptual unravelling."