Thursday 9 August 2018

Weaving in VR with Gravity Sketch


Gravity Sketch is a 3D modeling tool in VR. I am transported into a large, empty warehouse space where I have the room to create 3D structures. I lost all sense of time and awareness to my real surroundings.
This is a truly immersive tool that allows a more intuitive way of modeling in 3D, compared to Rhino. There was much more of a connection with the design process, as I had to use my whole body to create the structure - sweeping my arm from one corner of the room to the other, ducking under the lines i created and side-stepping others. Using the whole body to create the model in such an intangible space is very surreal. There is a direct involvement with the digital and it bridges the gap between the digital and the physical.
After a while though, I did start to feel quite disorientated and claustrophobic. On taking off the headset and coming back to the real world, I felt nauseous for a good few hours afterwards. I wonder if this motion sickness sensation was down to the constant changing of my surroundings in the virtual world? - Changing the scale of the structure, spinning them around, pushing them away.

Friday 23 February 2018

Tactile thought

I spent my morning winding a large skein of deep brown, soft and chunky Welsh wool into balls. Quiet time standing over a skein of yarn, stretched between two chairs, navigating my arm in a circular motion, guiding the wool. Inhaling the comforting lanolin scent.Feeling the warmth of the fibres as the yarn slipped through my fingers was meditative, giving me time to reflect on the tactility of my action and encouraging words to appear and sentences to form in my head. A practice in materiality and thinking and an antidote to the digital day to come.