Babs Smith
The Sky is Not The Limit, Virtual Reality Video, Tiltbrush and AI software, 2021
Deansgate, Manchester SOUND ON
This work responds to Nancy Collantine’s paintings, (exhibited in Deansgate July 2021) their reference to the colours of both the old and new architecture, particularly the towers inhabiting the negative spaces of the recent past. Not only the pedestrians and drivers negotiate this new landscape but the sunset, the moon and even the wind is changed by their presence.
Traditional brick buildings give birth to a metamorphosis of glassy rectangles that pierce the sky like alien stalagmites grown from a rich soil of Manchester’s architectural history. This pop-up exhibition takes the viewer to a virtual space in the night sky, presenting an AI interpretation of the negative space and ‘removing the hand of the artist’. Sound recordings from Manchester’s construction sites pulsate through the tower and software records their impressions as they pierce the solar system where once it registered stars. Thanks to Olivia Jack for the use of https://ojack.xyz/PIXELSYNTH/ This scene was created using Google Tilt Brush in Virtual Reality - Oculus Rift and AI app https://www.playform.io/