- The month-long exhibition is showcasing works by six visual artists.
- The technologies can however be used in the health, construction, education, marketing and even the real estate sectors.
It was all pomp and colour when I walked in at the third installation of the State of the Art exhibition in Westlands.
Having launched last week on Friday, the event is a call for wide-scale adoption of Virtual Reality (VR) and Augmented Reality (AR) technologies in many sectors.
This is in a bid to capitalise on the massive, immersive and eye-opening opportunities they have to offer.
Dubbed SOTA 3.0 Darubini (telescope), the month-long exhibition is showcasing works by six visual artists who were under the wider theme of how technology can enable us take a reflective look at different aspects of our lives.
I was really taken aback by the level at which the creative industry has adopted technology.
Most of us can relate VR and AR technologies to gaming. These technologies can however be used in the health, construction, education, marketing and even the real estate sectors.
In this case, the six different artists embedded their art work in VR and AR gadgets, which was a completely and new creative way to view art.
We are used to the walk-in museums, art galleries that sometimes welcome only invited guests who RSVP and even some who pay to view different traditional and modern art pieces.
Like any other art-based event, we were welcomed with some drinks and bitings.
The whole aesthetic at the OUT Reality art space was just mind blowing.
I have never been at an art event that had a culmination of different colours that made the space look very beautiful.
I was welcomed by mirrored splitting screens that were forming barricades as a way of sectioning out every creative’s space.
On one end you can see a bed with pillowed creatures that form a representation of a human muse sitting and reminiscing in their room.
In another section you are welcomed to the creative’s study space or bedroom, while in another section we are in heaven.
I have never interacted with AR and VR technologies before. Yes, I know. But it was an interesting first-time experience.
What caught my attention were two different art projects. Adam Yawe’s Jua ni Kali project is a VR animated short film exploring Kenya’s jua kali culture and its connection to skateboarding.
“I run a skateboarding inspired fashion brand called Zamani skateboards. I also skateboard,” Yawe said.
He is passionate about exploring material culture.
Yawe’s art focuses on the stories that can be told by objects in Nairobi’s Urban Landscape.
“I believe items go on journeys as they have a place they come from and a purpose we intended them to serve,” he said.
“They can have lives beyond their initial reason for creation.”
His creative artwork follows the mkokoteni (handcart) we all know from creation to its daily use as a work tool and finally as it is transformed to an object for expression through skateboarding.
At this point, I made my own mkokoteni at Kamukunji, disassembled it at Marigiti and recreated it in Westlands.
All this was through the VR experience.
Being a product designer, Yawe didn’t have 2D drawings to decorate his space. He instead brought the Kamukunji market and skateboarding aesthetic to this exhibition.
In another space, Angela Cauri takes us to her study space. Her ‘A personal odyssey of thyself’ project is set out to explore architectural potential within digital narrative form immersive environments.
The project is an embodiment of where architecture meets storytelling.
“My art has been more about experimenting. I do my artwork at anytime,” she says. “I constantly look for items in my surrounding that are not in use, which I turn to art pieces. I am yet to find my niche in this art space.”
Cauri says that architecture is an art-based career as well as science and tech based.
“With such interests, I have been keen on linking art to architecture. I feel like it is not something I need to choose from, whether it is one or the other,” she said.
In her VR experience, I move from her bedroom, to the living room to the balcony. Her colourful experience through the VR lenses is how she wants us to see her world.
Artistic people are very expressive.
“As a traditional artist, most of our 2D work involves drawing on paper or canvas. Technology is rapidly evolving and we need to jump on this bandwagon,” Cauri said.
“This touch of tech has the 3D and visualisation aspect to it. It has been fun creating in the virtual space.”
She says she had the chance to create without the limitations of gravity and site regulations and restrictions.
“It has been something interesting to explore and I am determined to continue combining my art with the architectural aspect of things,” she said.
The 2D visual art pieces she has displayed physically are all in her VR experience.
I visited all six creator spaces and each had its own background story. I went through the VR experience and the AR one too as we used some tabs that brought the artists' work to life.
As I panned the tab around, I could see all the creators' work actively playing out in my immediate environment.
The other art works include Leezie’s ‘The Queen is Dead’ project, Gavin Kendo’s ‘Cotton Candy Dreams’ project, John Maronga’s ‘Euphoria’ project and Husna Ismail’s ‘Growth’.
State of the Art is part of an initiative of Goethe Institut called JENGA CCI that is in partnership with BlackRhino VR, an eXtended Reality (XR) production agency.
They are dedicated to strengthening the creative economy in different sectors in Kenya by encouraging the use of immersive technologies in creation and delivery of content.
BlackRhino VR communications and community manager Shamina Rajab said that this event marks their final installation of their brainchild project. “This whole idea is still very experimental,” she said.
For their first installation, NOMA, Rajab said that they had to go and look for art collectives who they trained in 2020.
“We went to their spaces and set up the gear for them to design their projects. We had a total of six exhibitors,” she said.
For the second installation, USONI, they gave each of the five artists their own technology to go home and create with.
“This was around the Covid period and we used to train them virtually,” Rajab said.
“Once the resources were enough we were able to give every artist a laptop and a headset. These trainings are entirely free.”
For the current cohort they received over 100 applications of which they used their own criteria to narrow down to six exhibitors.
“In our selection criteria we look at the creator’s level of knowledge with several apps so that we can determine the learning curve point they are in and if they meet our set requirements among other things,” she said.
Shamina said that they have selected and trained very many artists.
During the NOMA exhibition they showcased artworks by art collectives and pencil on canvas artists.
For Usoni they showcased artworks by animators, 2D artists, and illustrators.
For Darubini they involved product designers and artists that work with canvas. “We would love to increase the number of artists we work with but immersive technology is resource intensive,” she said.
“We need high tech computers, VR headsets are expensive.”
Currently, the cost of acquiring the VR and AR technologies is prohibitive making it difficult to scale them.
For example, a VR headset cost upward of Sh50,000 which makes it out of reach for many people.
“For each artist to get sufficient technological hardware, we really need to have enough funds to actually purchase them,” Rajab said.
She said that they are looking for support from the government, private stakeholders, who will support them to reach as many artists as possible.
“Our OUT Reality, XR Lab and Exhibition space needs hardware and software support.”
As part of their success story, Rajab said that they have created close to 17 XR art projects in the last three years.
“We have had artists who have sold VR, AR NFTs, created museums and worlds have been used to create awareness,” she said.
"We want the artists to travel the world as they showcase their work. We want them to sell the projects so that they can be economically empowered through our small creatives space."
Currently they have several programs that different artists can apply to through their social media platforms.
Rajab also urged artists to utilise and learn through platforms like Google and YouTube.