Awful Splendour in the the Visualization and Emerging Media Studio (VEMS) at UBCO
What: Awful Splendour, Immersive slideshow
Who: Andreas Rutkauskas
When: Thursday, November 17th 11:30am – 2:30pm (drop in); Saturday, December 10th 1-2:30pm (includes formal artist presentation)
Where: Visualization and Emerging Media Studio (COM 107), UBC Okanagan
Join us on November 17th and December 10th to see the work of visual arts lecturer Andreas Rutkauskas in the Visualization and Emerging Media Studio (VEMS).
The immersive slideshow titled Awful Splendour, in tribute to the work of scientist Stephen J. Pyne, allows visitors to experience the aftermath and regeneration following wildfire in the Okanagan through stereoscopic immersive visualization. Working with a high-resolution camera outfitted with six lenses, the artist captures scenes from a range of fires that took place between 2003 and 2020. Visitors use passive 3D glasses to experience dynamic imagery on Canada’s highest-resolution, 3D, VR-ready video wall in the VEMS. Awful Splendour reminds residents and visitors alike that the Okanagan is a fire-adapted ecosystem, where fire has a longstanding and complex history of shaping the land.
This experience is being presented in conjunction with Rutkauskas’ exhibition Living Through Wildfire on display at the Vernon Public Art Gallery until December 21, 2022.
Andreas Rutkauskas has been making photographs of landscapes for over twenty years, four of which have been dedicated to the aftermath and regeneration following wildfire. Andreas was the inaugural artist in residence at the Grantham Foundation for the Arts and the Environment (2020), a Research Fellow with the Canadian Photography Institute (2018), and currently teaches photography at UBC’s Okanagan campus, on the unceded traditional territory of the Syilx.