Zach Duer

(In Progress)

Time Garden is a choreographic work operating at the intersection of physical and imagined virtual spaces. Constructed entirely in virtual, three dimensional space for virtual reality, it combines the art forms of dance (through motion capture), music, visual art, and digital animation.

“Dawn Replica” is a choreographic animation that presents a chimeric vision of the human body fragmented in the cyber age, and is the first movement in a larger suite of works called Time Garden created at the intersection of music, visual art and dance in virtual reality. In this work, a multitude of earthen avatars perform an infinitely looping ritual of posthuman life in an impossible environment of non-space and surreal digital fantasy. The floor sparkles with filtered sand. Massive human lymphatic systems become a signal-routing apparatus, hovering overhead. The viewer is drawn inexorably through the grid of avatars: a cyborg choir sings its homage to unexistence.

In this liminal space between physicality and digitality, body and movement become replicable and simulateable. As videogames become the predominant entertainment industry, the visual language suggested through their design has become a critical part of contemporary communication. In this context, avatars are the projection of our increasingly tracked and monitored bodies into the virtual space. This animation, created in the Unity engine and using motion capture technology adopted by the industry, invites viewers into a vision of the future rituals of humanity life in game-like cyberspace, with avatars that are a fractured reflection of human movement and presence.