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Charlotte Davies «Osmose» | Osmose (installation view)
Charlotte Davies, «Osmose», 1995
Osmose (installation view) | © Charlotte Davies
The staging: on entering the work «Osmose» (1995), we encounter two image surfaces in a darkened space. One image surface is quickly recognized as a projection surface for moving pictures; the other depicts the silhouette of someone wearing a data helmet with a cable that connects to a computer (not visible in the shadows). The seats in the middle of the space invite the visitor who has just stepped inside to spend the time relaxing and observing. Soon comes the decisive finale: the helmet wearer is obviously the person who stepped «behind the backdrop,» behind the milky over-sized pane, and who controls the projected, moving pictures from there. For the viewer watching the action, this person becomes a kind of navigator through the world of images. Both visual elements – the moving pictures and silhouette – are clearly connected as though existing in real time together.
 


 
 

Source text:

Davies, Charlotte «Artist's statement»

Works by Charlotte Davies:

Éphémère| Osmose


Canada | SGI Onyx Infinite Reality Engine2 mit R4400 150 Mhz Prozessor, 2 RM6's, plus 128 MB RAM, DAT drive, 2GB Hard Disk, CD-ROM drive, Macintosh Computer, HMD mit Polhemus Tracker, Datenbeamer, digitaler Stereo-Amplifier mit Lautsprecherboxen | Concept: Char Davies | Music: Rick Bidlack | Participants: Georges Mauro, Dorota Blaszczak | Software: John Harrison | interactive environment
 

 Charlotte Davies

Fusing art and technology, Char Davies has achieved international recognition for her work in virtual reality. Integrating real-time stereoscopic 3-D computer graphics, 3-D localized sound and user interaction based on breath & balance,
Davies has dealt with the themes of nature, psyche, and perception in her work for more than 25 years. She studied liberal arts (visual art, philosophy, religion, anthropology and biology) at Bennington College, Vermont from 1973 to 1975, and obtained a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree from the University of Victoria, British Columbia, in 1978. Over the following decade, she worked with many different media, including painting, documentary filmmaking and animation, developing a distinctive symbolic language and aesthetic. In the mid 1980s, Davies began to explore the virtual space of 3-D computer technology as a means of furthering her artistic intentions: in late 1987, she became a founding director of Softimage, building it into the world's leading developer of 3-D animation software, used for special effects in many Hollywood films including «Jurassic Park» and «The Matrix.» Davies was on the Softimage Board of Directors and head of its Visual Research group for a ten-year period, during which the company went public on Nasdaq in 1992 and was acquired by Microsoft in 1994. She left Softimage at the end of 1997 to found her own art & technology research company, Immersence Inc.; lives and works in Montréal and San Francisco.
(Source: www.immersence.com)