360: Chiara Passa

A virtual reality painting, Still Life overlays image, object and landscape to generate a saturated panorama. Users explore Passa’s unique topography, which is set across two distinct worlds, by traversing various types of terrain, moving through and around structures, and interacting with ornate objects. Composed using photogrammetry – the process of interpreting physical material by measuring and recording photographic images – the fractured landscape consists of scanned features and scenes from the artist’s mother’s Italian home.

Through custom game play, users discover and interact with domestic items. Digitised kettles, vases and sugar canisters fracture into a series of spikes and sounds when they are picked up and shaken, revealing their photographically composed nature. By rendering these traditional objects into an expansive virtual scene, Still Life intersects the contemporary medium of immersive technology with traditional and historical art forms, further diluting the physical into a liminal sphere.

Chiara Passa (b. 1973, Italy. Lives and works in Rome) received a Master in Fine Arts degree from the Fine Arts Academy of Rome, and a Master’s degree in Audiovisual Media from the Faculty of Modern Literature. Since 1997, Passa has worked in virtual and augmented reality to explore architecture as an interface. Her work challenges the static nature of architectural structures across immersive digital platforms, exploring the duality between tangible and virtual space. Recent exhibitions include Object Oriented Space, Museum of Contemporary Art MLAC, Rome (2019); Virtual Natives – Sculpture, Roehrs & Boetsch Gallery, Zurich (2019); inSonic, ZKM | Center for Art and Media, Karlsruhe (2017); and Dimensioning – Live Architectures, Furtherfield Gallery, London (2016). This is the artist’s first public presentation of Still Life and the first exhibition of her virtual reality work in the UK.