Virtual reality artist Rosie Summers creates immersive 3D worlds designed to be experienced with the human body. With augmented technologies, such as a VR headset, handheld consoles and a palette, the artist is fully immersed in an imaginative world constructed entirely in virtual reality. Because space is the canvas, Summers relies on her physical body — namely, her arms, legs and torso — to produce live paintings.
“Every brushstroke,” the artist remarks, “suspends in the air from free-form sketching movement.” Each physical gesture forms a different 3D shape, accentuating the significance of every motion to the final image. Due to their physicality, her live paintings are accompanied by music and become performances incorporating sound, dance and visual art. The work i_I, on view in the “Portals” exhibition, functions as both a performance and a live-action painting. It illustrates the blurred line not only between mediums but also physical reality and virtual reality, all of which is facilitated by the portal of the Internet.
i_I is presented as a live recording of Summers painting a 3D image in VR. The video opens with Summers in a black satin robe, swinging her console in the air to form a glossy, mirror-like oval. She turns to a new area and begins painting a portrait of a woman. Her digital color palette contains shades of brown for the figure’s complexion and black and white to define her facial features. Then Summers turns back around, taking full advantage of her spatial canvas, to step through the oval and sketch another figure. When she steps through, her hair and clothes change, highlighting her transition from one world to the other.
Swiping the console horizontally back and forth, Summers fills in the figure’s face with a faint blue color. Like commands on a keyboard, she pulls the suspended personage toward her to refine her brushstrokes and zooms out to make broader ones. Once this second figure is complete, the resulting image depicts a brown-skinned woman and a faint female form facing each other. The oval becomes an orb of light, resembling a portal, and the figures reach for it on either side. Their fingers touch through the emblematic portal and ignite an electrifying charge through the faint blue avatar.
The final painting represents the encounter where the physical self meets its virtual counterpart. The two access each other through the vast, boundless portal of the Internet, where avatars and online personalities live. In her performance, Summers gives special care to the details of the woman and the blue figure. It demonstrates that she understands the validity of a digital personality to be similar to a real, living person.
Although manufactured, an online persona exists because it inhabits other worlds. The video also characterizes the way the physical self acts as a digital personality within virtual spaces. Summers even inserts herself into the 3D plane to feel fully immersed in the space. “The most exciting thing about VR,” she says, “is being in the art.” Through performance and live painting, Summers depicts the Internet portal as an opportunity to activate other selves and alternate worlds.
