Art x Sustainability at Pepperdine University
Year: 2021-ongoing Size: 3000x1706, 300 DPI, 7.4MB
The Art x Sustainability initiative brings together scholars and artists to examine issues such as environmentalism, agriculture, ecology, and sustainable processes, using multi-faceted, transdisciplinary approaches. Spearheaded by Assistant Professor of Studio Art, Kate Parsons, students and faculty from both the Fine Arts and Sustainability departments work together to host lectures, workshops and other methods of creative inquiry.
Past and future guests include: Alice Yuan Zhang, Isabel Beavers, Supercollider Gallery, Alvarro Azcarraga, Julie Weitz, and Metabolic Studio. Affiliated faculty also include Dr. Christopher Doran and Dr. Helen Holmlund.
Learn more at: https://artxsustainability.cargo.site/
Fireline Series; Everything you know could flare up and be gone.
Year: 2023-24
Video/simulation
Length: 1:37
The Fireline series depicts the trenches cut by wildland firefighters to slow forest fires as its main subject. In the summer of 2021, the Harris Mountain Fire threatened to burn the Parsons family homestead, the family ranch, and what was left of my childhood home. That year, the skies refused to rain for months on end, the trees had turned dormant early, and the firefighters warned us that there would be no stopping the fire until the first snow of the year–likely in October. Meanwhile, the wind blew the flames right to us. I imagined it tearing through the landscape, leaving it alien and unrecognizable and it broke my heart into a million pieces.
Built in Unreal Engine, these pieces explore perspectival shifts–looking at the firelines themselves from various vantage points. They ask us to contemplate an immediate ecological crisis while attempting to keep the viewer suspended in a moment of dreadful, quiet terror.
1. Fireline with Yarrow; Everything you know could flare up and be gone.
2. Fireline with Fleabane; Everything you know could flare up and be gone.
The Dark Spring and Dark Spring: VR
ft. “Wake” by RYAT
3 minutes, 2018
The Dark Spring: VR was created by FLOAT LAND as part of a residency at Coaxial Arts Foundation in partnership with the Pasadena Arts Alliance.
ft. “Wake” by RYAT
3 minutes, 2018
The Dark Spring: VR was created by FLOAT LAND as part of a residency at Coaxial Arts Foundation in partnership with the Pasadena Arts Alliance.
Mythological stories often carry the motifs of an underworld-dwelling divinity emerging into the light, as frost-covered earth once again becomes teeming with life. This myth is reinterpreted within Parsons’s work through the use of screen-based media and technology.
In this solo exhibition, Parsons presented a series of floral sculptures made of discarded cemetery flowers, fresh flowers, and yard refuse, alongside new video works, an interactive projection, and a virtual reality prototype. The Dark Spring focuses on themes of mortality as a meditation on the passing of time and the celebration of the natural cycle of death and rebirth. An excess of color, beauty and decay is portrayed in the artists’ distinctive electro-Victorian sensibility.
Parsons’s Coaxial residency fell just after the vernal equinox in the northern hemisphere, a time of year marked by cultures across the world for millennia. The piece 3.20.18, 9:15 AM PST is a collaboration by Parsons and over 40 media artists from around the Los Angeles area, including Anna Luisa Petrisko (Jeepney’s), Candace Reckinger (USC Animation), Chandler McWilliams (UCLA DMA), Eileen Cowin, Ethan Gold, Eva Aguila, Gavin Gamboa, Jonathan Snipes (Clipping), Laura Darlington, Lee Tusman, Michael John Kelly, Natalie Sun (Next Art), Nathaniel Eras, Nina Sarnelle, Peter Flaherty (CalArts Interactive Media/Performance), Rachel Binx, Samantha Culp (Paloma Powers), Sarah Zucker, Sharsten Plenge (We Open Art Houses), Ty Pownall (Pepperdine), Victoria Vesna (UCLA DMA).
This residency was made possible by a grant from the Pasadena Arts Alliance and technical support from Coaxial Arts Foundation and FLOAT.
In this solo exhibition, Parsons presented a series of floral sculptures made of discarded cemetery flowers, fresh flowers, and yard refuse, alongside new video works, an interactive projection, and a virtual reality prototype. The Dark Spring focuses on themes of mortality as a meditation on the passing of time and the celebration of the natural cycle of death and rebirth. An excess of color, beauty and decay is portrayed in the artists’ distinctive electro-Victorian sensibility.
Parsons’s Coaxial residency fell just after the vernal equinox in the northern hemisphere, a time of year marked by cultures across the world for millennia. The piece 3.20.18, 9:15 AM PST is a collaboration by Parsons and over 40 media artists from around the Los Angeles area, including Anna Luisa Petrisko (Jeepney’s), Candace Reckinger (USC Animation), Chandler McWilliams (UCLA DMA), Eileen Cowin, Ethan Gold, Eva Aguila, Gavin Gamboa, Jonathan Snipes (Clipping), Laura Darlington, Lee Tusman, Michael John Kelly, Natalie Sun (Next Art), Nathaniel Eras, Nina Sarnelle, Peter Flaherty (CalArts Interactive Media/Performance), Rachel Binx, Samantha Culp (Paloma Powers), Sarah Zucker, Sharsten Plenge (We Open Art Houses), Ty Pownall (Pepperdine), Victoria Vesna (UCLA DMA).
This residency was made possible by a grant from the Pasadena Arts Alliance and technical support from Coaxial Arts Foundation and FLOAT.
Still From Dark Spring: VR ft. Wake by RYAT
The Dark Spring, installation.
The Dark Spring, installation.
The Dark Spring, installation.
FLOAT.LAND
FLOAT is a creative studio founded in 2015 by Kate Parsons and Ben Vance. Focusing on media art and interactivity, FLOAT create evocative, nuanced art experiences that push the boundaries of process and technique. Their work has shown with Vulcan Inc., Marina Abramovic’s Acute Art VR Platform, and at prestigious locations such as SFMOMA, Art Toronto, Sundance Film Festival, SXSW, and TIFF. It has been featured in Art News, the LA Times, Variety, Forbes, The CBC, BBC News, Flaunt, Hyperallergic, and more. Collaborators and clients include Petra Cortright, Ian Cheng, Pierre Hughye, Jennifer Steinkamp, Mark Pellington, Within, WeVR, Toro y Moi, United Nude, GitHub, Tender Claws, Standard Vision, Amazon Studios, Dublab, and Tony Hawk. Their simulation game, Screensavers VR, can be found on internet gaming platforms Steam, Oculus, Itch.io, and Viveport.
As of February 2024, their latest project Stranger Things Mixed Reality can be purchased for the Meta Quest as a part of Stranger Things VR.
For more, visit FLOAT.LAND.
Holodome™
Vulcan Holodome™ x Wevr Productions and FLOAT LAND
FLOAT Museum: Holodome Edition
ft. FLOAT, Jennifer Steinkamp, Casey Reas, Megan Daalder, Kerenza Harris, Mark Pellington.
Venice, CA
FLOAT Museum: Holodome Edition
ft. FLOAT, Jennifer Steinkamp, Casey Reas, Megan Daalder, Kerenza Harris, Mark Pellington.
Venice, CA
Year: 2018
Interactive VR/Dome Projection
Length: Variable
Following the initial FLOAT Museum debut at SFMOMA, FLOAT recieved support from WeVR and Paul Allen’s Vulcan, Inc to create a version for the Holodome™. A new immersive reality space and format, the Holodome™ surrounds and immerses viewers in 360 content
With the closing of the Holodome™ in 2019, funding is now being sought to bring this version to other forms of virtual reality.
Contributors to this version of The FLOAT Museum were illustrious artists, filmmakers and designers, including:
Jennifer Steinkamp
Artist, Professor at UCLA Media Arts. Steinkamp has shown in numerous galleries and architectural spaces such as The Corcoran, MOMA, LACMA, MCASD, and more.
Mark Pellington
Filmmaker: The Mothman Prophecies, Henry Poole is Here, Nostalgia, U2 3D; Pearl Jam’s “Jeremy,” Foo Fighters “Best of You,” The Flaming Lips “Do You Realize” and more.
Casey Reas
Artist, Professor at UCLA Media Arts, Co-inventor of Processing; Work has shown at The Whitney, SFMOMA, Transfer Gallery, Bitforms, Charlie James Gallery.
Kerenza Harris
Processor at Sci-Arc, and architect with Morphosis Architects, helping create parametric tools to aid in the development of concept through fabrication.
Jesse Fleming
Artist, Filmmaker, and Educator. Massachusetts Museum of Contemporary Art, Otis College of Art and Design, Hammer Museum Los Angeles, NADA Miami.
Megan Daalder
...is a self-styled guinea pig using video, performance, and science to investigate life on earth. Her work can be found on TEDx, Five Car Garage, and art fairs such as NADA Miami.
FLOAT
Media Artists Kate Parsons and Ben Vance use video, interactivity, and sound to create innovative art installations. Their work has shown at Art Toronto, SFMOMA, HRLA, SXSW and Slamdance.
Team:
Levi Rohr
Interactive Artist and Co-Founder of @SundaeMonth.
Evan Hemsley
Game designer on Hyper Light Drifter, Failsafe, and more.
Miller Klitsner
Media Artist, game maker, and recent graduate of UCLA Design Media Arts.
Atley Loughridge
Interactive Designer and Artist, recent graduate of USC’s Interactive Media MFA, and participant at Oculus Connect.
Chris DeLeon
Game developer, interactive designer, author and founder of Gamkedo.