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Tanja Vujinović


MetaGarden: Sphere5


world in VR for platform Sansar, 2021

MetaGarden: Sphere5 by Tanja Vujinović is the latest output from her series of artworks for social VR spaces. MetaGarden is an imaginary-real world that exists both in virtual and real space and is segmented into related Spheres. Its conceptual framework encourages us to think about the current human and non-human networks that we are part of.

Lee Worth Bailey wrote about »deep technology« that moves away from egoism and materialism towards caring for the other and the environment. Developing a sense of place within the MetaGarden is based on a tradition of phenomenology that highlights »Being-in-the-world«. It is a primordial ontological participation in the environment through which the existence in the world envelopes and opposes the »industrial ego as a subject standing against a world of neutral objects«. »Deep technology« would require a fundamental change in technological thinking towards more self-awareness. Caring, instead of ego-driven competition and self-aggrandisement, is the way to combat frantic materialism. It is not about rejecting technology, but about bringing it closer to deeper reasons of existence.

In a broad philosophical sense, Sphere5 is inspired by Arcadian gardens, within which we engage with inhuman agents rising from the cloud of mythology. If it wasn’t for the sand as the base of this world, we could instantly think in terms of perfect heterotopias, as they were envisioned by Michel Foucault, like gardens detached from ordinary life. This garden is inhabited by biomimetic machines, Dyson spheres, and bone flowers that appeared from the roots of carboniferous plants. MetaGarden would not be a meta-garden without proto-machines, devices of the future arising from speculative ideas about renewable energy resources, clean industrial development of goods, and hopeful dreams of a world without pollution. Although many alternative ecological solutions are being developed nowadays, we have yet to see if any of them will be used on a broader scale. Until then, we might think along the lines of these semi-imaginary, intelligent, self-operating, and self-assembling machines that are working synergistically with their surroundings.

Sphere5 is placed within Sansar, an amalgam of a computer game and a social platform. It is a virtual club garden that enables us to explore virtual reality as a social space of connectedness, featuring a minimal techno audio-visual set or special events scheduled by the author.

Credits:
MetaGarden: Sphere5 by Tanja Vujinović
World for Sansar online platform
Sansar link to world MetaGarden: Sphere5
In case of events, host name: TanjaV (add to friends, then teleport) or join the event
3D modelling: Tanja Vujinović
World building: Tanja Vujinović
₲Ɇ₦Ɇ₴ł₴ AV set played in the world: Tanja Vujinović (visual material from Universal Objects and MetaGarden series) & Sasa Radic (sound); Tracks: Jackal, B3, Mind Drive, Vertical, Push it, Rolling 3.0, Never Ending Story (Published by Vozotonik Records, Triple Vision Record Distribution / Smashed Records. Proton Distribution)
Additional assets for the world and avatar clothing: Sansar Store
Coproduction: SciArtLab, Jožef Stefan Institute
Production: Ultramono, 2021 

Consulting:
Kristina Bukač, Informatics engineer
Arijana Filipić, Department of Biotechnology and Systems Biology, National Institute of Biology
Prof. George Poinar, College of Science at Oregon State University
Dr. Jelena Guga, researcher
Dr. Vid Podpečan, Department of Knowledge Technologies, Jožef Stefan Institute
Ivan Stanić, curator and artist
Derek Snyder, researcher and editor
Maja Ćirić, curator and art critic
Friends from Sansar