THE OTHER SIDE OF DEATH
INTERACTIVE, MULTIMEDIA, and VR Fine ART PROJECT
I have always tried to illustrate the ambiances and scenes I’ve seen, imagined, or felt with every fiber of my being. But, a framed illustration is not enough, and I want my audiences to be able to take a turn, look around, hear the ambiance, feel the warmth, and touch the things in the illustration as well.
This project is my first attempt at combining cutting-edge technologies with traditional arts. The scenes renaissance artists painted on church walls, ceilings, and sanctuaries are a kind of virtual reality with which they had illustrated the stories of Christ. Raphael’s rooms and Tiepolo’s allegoria dei continenti are some dominant examples of this fact. Likewise, in this project, I tried to recreate the scenes I imagined while I was reading some stories using VR technology, and let the audiences enter this artwork, look around, hear the sounds, and try to find the way out. This project is a combination of drawing, painting, animation, and graphic design which is presented in a VR world in an app/website!
In this project, the audiences will not stand in front of a framed painting, but they walk through it, stand in the center of it, and feel themselves inside the artwork! In this project, the audiences will not stand in front of a framed painting, but they walk through it, stand in the center of it, and feel themselves inside the artwork!
I started this project in 2014 for my thesis when the only available VR headset was Google cardboard! But now, thanks to advances in VR / AR technologies, they are more available, and the people’s knowledge of these technologies has increased. In addition, it is now possible to sell these digital artworks through NFT, which is one of my future plans for both this and other similar projects.
The illustrated images and scenes are my visual imaginations when I read four stories written by “Gabriel García Márquez”, “Carlos Fuentes”, “José Leandro Urbina”, and “Sadegh Choubak”. The illustrations are drawn manually by pen, charcoal, and ink on canvas in a spherical panoramic mode (6 point perspective). When the audiences enter the app/website, they choose one of the four stories, and then they enter a 3D VR world. Then they must look around carefully to find the way out. This matter forces them to look at all details and find the connections between each part. After finding the exit gate, they enter a summary of the whole story and realize the meaning of each detail they have seen.
Based on a spherical panoramic artwork by M. C. Escher
The story: The Death of Artemio Cruz, Carlos Fuentes
Based on a spherical panoramic artwork by Hieronymus Bosch
The story: Our Father Who Art in Heaven, Jose Leandro Urbina
The story: Parizad & Pariman, Sadegh Choubak
The story: The Other Side of Death Gabriel García Márquez
I started this project in 2014 for my thesis when the only available VR headset was Google cardboard! But now, thanks to advances in VR / AR technologies, they are more available, and the people’s knowledge of these technologies has increased. In addition, it is now possible to sell these digital artworks through NFT, which is one of my future plans for both this and other similar projects.