TMRW, Johannesburg
05.09 – 31.10.2018
‘I do think we’re a little ahead of our time,’ says Ann Roberts, the curator of The Mixed Reality Workshop (TMRW) at the Keyes Art Mile. As far as her project of introducing audiences and artists to the possibilities of VR and its applications for art practice, that’s not a casual boast. It’s an opinion that Roberts has formed in the light of recent trips to the Samsung Museum in Korea and Contemporary Istanbul where she showcased the gallery’s first exhibition, Mary Sibande’s ‘Crescendo of Ecstasy’. She says she, ‘was astonished at how in both Korea and Istanbul there was nothing like our stuff. There is a lot of work being done but we’re also trying to take it from beyond just being a film. There are a lot of documentaries where people just document something and put it in VR but those are 360 films as opposed to artworks.’
TMRW’s current exhibition ‘Old Masters New Realities’ comprises two sections – one in which Wayne Barker has created a series of works that respond to the works of JH Pierneef, and the other in which Lady Skollie has responded to a work by Gerard Sekoto. Both pieces comprise VR – Barker’s is a typically impish and layered invitation into the artist’s studio where he produces his responses to Pierneef in the company of Betty Boop, extracts from an old SABC documentary on Pierneef and the possibilities offered by VR tilt-brush painting. The VR headset in the piece is appropriately disguised in an old Viewmaster. The rest of the space is occupied by several Pierneefs as well as Barker’s own works, including a spectacular beaded work that incorporates several of Barker’s familiar tropes and figures against a Pierneef background. Lady Skollie’s work provides a playful, edgy, interaction with Gerard Sekoto’s painting Blue Head. Here the VR consists of a tilt-brush painting, which can be examined from all angles but the added introduction of peepholes in the gallery walls opens the work up to an interrogation of ideas around voyeurism and morbid curiosity – when you peer through them you see what the VR viewer using the headset is experiencing – the boundaries between private and public thus melting together, creating a communal experience. Both artists demonstrate a thorough enjoyment of the opportunities provided by VR and illustrate Roberts philosophy that using the technology, is ‘not about changing their artistic practice, it’s not about changing the subject matter they work with or the style or anything – it’s about using another brush but they have to think about how they use the brush so that’s it not a straight transferal of what they’re doing but how they extend themselves and extend their practice.’
For Roberts what the gallery has managed to do for its second show, ‘is creating a traditional immersive exhibition. There are some people who come in here who know Wayne and Skollie’s work but who’ve never seen a real Pierneef or Sekoto so it’s great to have those conversations.’ The production costs and the Sekoto and Pierneef artworks on show as part of the exhibition were provided by the Keyes Art Mile, who also sponsored the Sibande show earlier this year. Now however, Roberts needs to seek alternate sponsorship to keep TMRW’s vision alive. She admits that the technology is ever evolving and that quality VR work is expensive to produce and currently not easy to sell so, ‘keeping it going is a major challenge and I think it’s a fantastic opportunity for a sponsor because as a showcase for technology in a creative and innovative way I think it’s a really good property.’
Wayne Barker, Gaze, 2018. Installation View: TMRW, Johannesburg
She’s buoyed by the response to the work in Korea and Istanbul where she says that she, ‘realised they had about 70 000 people a day going through the fair and for four days solidly there was a queue of about 20 to 30 people waiting to look at Mary’s work and absolutely everybody was blown away. I think it positions South Africa at the top end of the global stage as far as VR and art are concerned.’
Sibande’s work has been invited to the Havana Biennale in Cuba next year and in the mean time, ‘the stuff that [Sibande] is coming up with now is a huge leap from what she did then. She’s now got a much better understanding of the process and what you can do and what the processes are and what the opportunities are.’ Barker and Lady Skollie are also enthusiastic about possible future VR projects and TMRW are busy preparing projects for next year’s Centre for the Less Good Idea’s fifth season, which will be completely VR based. Until then in the words of the late Nigerian synthesiser musician William Onyeabor:
No one knows tomorrow
Tomorrow, no one knows tomorrow
Anything you want to do, do it well, for no one knows
Tomorrow
Anywhere you want to go, go where, for no one knows
Tomorrow
Anytime you want to work, work hard, for no one
Knows tomorrow
Anytime you want to enjoy, enjoy well, for no one
Knows tomorrow
Anytime you (see the problem?), help (then/them), for
No one knows tomorrow
Anytime you want to sing, sing well, for no one knows
Tomorrow.
