Clarkson Professor to Premiere New Virtual Reality Project at Recontres Internationales Paris/Berlin New Cinema and Contemporary Art Festival in Paris

Clarkson University Associate Professor of Communication, Media and Design Alex Lee will world premiere his newest VR project, titled “The Fold” in Paris, France from May 5 to 8 at the Recontres Internationales Paris/Berlin New Cinema and Contemporary Art  Festival.

In the ‘VR Lab’ segment of the festival, The Fold will be featured alongside ten other  artworks in virtual reality that question our principles of reality, our daytime perceptions and  our everyday representations. Alex will be representing the USA in this lineup. 

“The Fold” is a non-linear interactive film and virtual reality-based art game involving rooms with doors containing a concept folding into other rooms with doors. Inspired by Jorge Luis Borges’  short story “The Garden of Forking Paths,” this VR-based “escape the room” project highlights the similarities and differences of technics as it relates to Western (episode I) and Eastern (episode II) philosophy, including structuralist and surrealist literature, sentient bodies, metaphysics, mathematics, the virtual object, Buddhism, Zen principles, Qi (氣), and problematizes the affirmation of technics, its outputs and technologies as anthropologically universal within the frame of VR, AI, 3D animation, and video games.

During this event, Alex will be featuring ‘episode I’ which involves five doors presented in virtual reality with the following names: the Doors, the Fold, the Grid, the Meridies, and the Cave.  

“My work is an investigation on the possibilities of digital imagery in an increasingly technical  and automated world. Originally born out of aesthetic theory, my practice focuses on the  creative employ of artifice and immateriality within the digital image,” Lee said. “I consider the digital image in relationship to the phrase ‘technical image’ coined by philosopher Vilem Flusser in which photography and mechanical reproduction heralded new forms of perceptual experience and knowledge. We are living in a digital age of the ‘elite technical image’ where increasingly complex technical software and hardware apparatuses are being utilized for the acquisition and dissemination of knowledge. The products of these technical apparatuses often find their way into my work expressively, culling from sources from science, science fiction, mathematics,  physics, and modernity.”

Lee is an artist who utilizes 3D animation, video game engines, virtual/augmented/immersive reality platforms, machine learning and the potential of  simulation technologies in order to investigate contemporary modes of representation, artifice  and technical images – culling from concepts within science, science fiction, physics, philosophy,  and modernity. He received his BFA (2005) and MFA (2009) from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago in the USA. 

There will be a livestream featured on the Recontres Internationales Paris/Berlin website at art-action.org/site/en/prog/22/paris/prog_live.php 

As a private, national research university, Clarkson is a leader in technological education and sustainable economic development through teaching, scholarship, research and innovation. We ignite personal connections across academic fields and industries to create the entrepreneurial mindset, knowledge and intellectual curiosity needed to innovate world-relevant solutions and cultivate the leaders of tomorrow. With its main campus located in Potsdam, N.Y., and additional graduate program and research facilities in the New York Capital Region, Beacon, N.Y., and New York City, Clarkson educates 4,600+ students across 95 rigorous programs of study in engineering, business, the arts, education, sciences and health professions. Our alumni earn salaries that are among the top 2.5% in the nation and realize accelerated career growth. One in five already leads as a CEO, senior executive or owner of a company. To learn more about Clarkson University, go to www.clarkson.edu.
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News directors and editors: For more information, contact Melissa Lindell, Director of Media Relations, at 315-268-6716 or mlindell@clarkson.edu.

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