The Virtual Studio (Work in Progress)

Building the Cybercity: An evening event at the Institute of Contemporary Art in London where:

Students, Artists and Researchers from fine art and architecture will present works in progress and latest artistic works in virtual reality. The hype of Virtual Reality has proved hollow, but the idea of virtual environments lives on. With trends towards organising and representing information using spatial metaphors and as objects, the design of computer generated spaces is becoming a discipline all of its own. Art may be moving away from narratives towards imaginary spaces which the artist invites its audience explore and interact with.
(from the programme)

For this presentation, Peter Maloney will take us on a live tour of the Virtual Studio as if it were a consensual memory palace, (building on Yates' ideas from 1996) to discuss some critical elements of virtual reality technology in art and design practice. We will explore how the body can shape and activate virtual architectures, how we can occupy virtual bodies and how it may be possible for virtual galleries to be a site for collective creative activity using new collaborative virtual tools.

Deep Screen Diving
'Building the Cybercity' was part of a season of events at the ICA between April and October 1996 called 'Deep Screen Diving' exploring the impact of new technologies on the arts, programmed by Lisa Haskell, Will Bell and the ICA. The series was sponsored by Toshiba, the BFI and the Arts Council England.

Towards the Aesthetics of the Future
As well as the Deep Screen Diving season, the ICA programmed a series of events under the title "The Aesthetics of the Future" between 1991 and 1996. Other events in this series included Culture, Creativity and Technology (1991), Hedgehogs and Megabytes (1993), Seduced and Abandoned (1994) and Technophobia (1995)