Bloom is a stereoscopic 3D, real time virtual world, where user behaviour impacts the flora, fauna and weather of the environments. It is an interactive three-act drama depicting a dystopian world that has become hostile to human habitation.
The work reflects on the 2021-2022 Nepean River floods, and the scenes are based on real world locations. The world is populated by cryptid animals that have evolved into bizarre combinations of Australian fauna and industrial motifs. The animal populations are governed by AI routines that control their desires. They explore, flock, hunt and evade.
Audience interactions change between the scenes, monitored by an XBox Kinect. In the first, movement causes the weather to dynamically change from calm to flood. In the second, audience movement influences a predator bird to move through the sky, killing flocking birds that try to evade it. In the third, movement across the exhibition space causes flowers to bloom and fade.
The aesthetics of the work reflect on 19th century colonial era sublime paintings of the Nepean River. I made many of the textures by snipping fragments of works by Constable, Turner, Piguenit, Friedrich and others, and blending them using 3D painting tools to create stylised environments. The work is displayed in a bespoke, pop-up 3D projection space that I built on site.
Bloom was first exhibited in Undercurrents, Penrith Regional Gallery, 2022.
Andrew Yip
Bloom 2022
Stereoscopic real time interactive environment
Immersive engineer: Evelyn Dang
HEVS engineer: Dylan Shorten
AI engineer: Byran Jacobs
System and sound design: Abram Powell