Reality Threshold and Navigation of the Mind


2021, Created in Unreal Engine and Ableton




What makes Virtual Reality real? What is the threshold in which a viewer truly feels that the virtual environment is a reality? In this work, I explore the extension of consciousness with VR through an uncanny dreamscape, with decontextualized objects, an unusual natural landscape and eery and childlike sounds. The viewer, without a body, wayfinds their way through a tunnel made of water, a spiral staircase, into a vast field of giant flowers, approaches a bounty of enormous fruit, traverses through hills, and resolves at a peaceful lagoon. An alternative life to death process, we begin in an enclosed space, and end in a pool surrounded by trees and birdsong. Fruits and flowers represent the fertility of life, while the mountainous desert portrays moments of solitude, loneliness, uneasiness. Without a body, however, there is no reflection of self, just a viewport in which one navigates their mind and subconscious.