Nine dragons stalk me and one of them burns me with its virtual breath, they seem threatening, but no, I end up on the back of one of the dragons to fly over the seas, immerse myself in them, peer into the oceanic abyss and fall into a vortex, into a spiral that takes me to different worlds and 9 dragons take us to an end of abrupt collapse. Surprising or self-prophetic?

This is the VORTEX exhibition – included in the LEV Festival – a sample of virtual reality experiences that offers a selection of immersive pieces created by renowned artists from around the world.

The environment in which the facilities are located and where different virtual reality immersion glasses are available is in itself appropriate: one of the industrial cutting rooms of Matadero Madrid, bare and cold, conveniently illuminated with LEDs and fluorescents, connecting different experiences with a certain flavor of apocalypse, dystopia and the end of the world, or of our civilization at least.

Collapse art

What are artists going to talk about today, if they are in this world in decline and collapse? Of course, of the climate emergency, of the extinction of life, of the rise and fall of a civilization, of the conscious artificial intelligences and robots that will succeed us, fortunately, they seem to tell us, in warning mode, that intelligent and conscious life will have a second opportunity based on silicon and not carbon.

The great annual event in Madrid of the LEV (Visual Electronics Laboratory) platform has been LEV Matadero, Festival of visual electronics and extended realities, 2023 edition. A festival that generates a meeting space with a wide audience to offer a panoramic and eclectic nature of the state of sound, audiovisual and digital creation of the moment, and its constant development and connection with different disciplines, through live shows and audiovisual performances, concerts, immersive virtual and augmented reality experiences, digital explorations, installations or exhibitions, among other proposals. The festival was held from September 21 to 24, 2023 in different spaces in Madrid Slaughterhouse.

In the Vórtex exhibition we are surrounded by the images and voice of the great Arthur C. Clarkescience fiction writer, space engineer with his scenarios and laws of the future: they resonate in a part of the room and his image projected on the cement recreates a scene cyberpunk most appropriate for this exhibition of extended reality experiences.

In the early sixties, AC Clarke told us: “we will be able to contact our friends anywhere on Earth, even if we do not know their real physical location, and run a business from anywhere on the planet.”

Nine Dragons

Internet 2023. The 360-degree cinematic piece is a classic of 360 VR cinema made in 2017 by the French director and artist François Vautier.

The piece Nine Dragonsnine dragons, is by the Chinese artist, born in Shanghai, Yang Yongliang, with clear mythological references. It is a classic immersive work from 2018 with a 360-degree narrative in 4K three-dimensional vision thanks, in this case, to Meta Quest VR glasses connected to a graphics station.

Furthermore, legend has it that a sleeping dragon lies underground in Shanghai. Chinese mythology tells us that oriental dragons are benevolent beings, guardians of life, who bring benefits to humanity. They are rather marine beings, but they can fly through the skies and perhaps the stars, despite not having wings.

The piece is inspired by the Southern Song Dynasty painting Nine Dragons of Chen Rong, a masterpiece that constitutes one of the most emblematic dragon motifs in the history of Asian art. Dragons are benevolent and therefore surely warn us of a possible civilizational collapse.

Dramatized vortex

In Vórtex, it is also worth highlighting the artist Juan Le Parc that shows Temple of the Flesh Tragedy Zoophilica, a dramatized animal tragedy, staged in a slow, macabre and mechanical choreography, in which visitors explore an ancient temple built with meat from butcher shops and delicatessens where the pig and the cow are chosen to represent religious and moral food taboos. Without a doubt connecting with the bloody past of Matadero Madrid.

Immersive experience

In the same exhibition, the Brazilian artist Pedro Harres presents From The Main Square, an immersive VR experience but animated in 2D, with a precise narrative and a virtual lens that users, clad in their virtual reality glasses, use to scrutinize the details of the graphic work that passes before their eyes, says Harres: “It starts by surrounding a central square, a new city emerges in all its diversity.

A crossroads of stories, buildings, hopes and conflicts. People foster sympathy and care for their peers, but also animosity toward those who are different. It’s not long before an “us versus them” atmosphere takes over. desde The Main Square is an interactive virtual reality experience that invites the viewer to witness the rise and fall of a divided society; how it flourishes only to become a danger to itself.”

Visual and theatrical

At the opening of LEV 2023 in Matadero we were also able to attend the impressive performance installation Shrink 01995 by the renowned Belgian artist Lawrence Malstaff which sits on the border between the visual and the theatrical, and represents the strange nature of the world we inhabit today. The installation is located outdoors, it is free, in front of Nave 16, which has previously hosted other performances such as the one carried out in 2019 by Extinction Rebellion Madrid “Funeral march of the species”, there were connections.

The performers, men and women, are suspended, their bodies literally bagged in transparent plastic, it is a powerful image that evokes many things. In the words of Malstaf “the project is part of a series of works that require the visitor to adapt to a new and unknown situation. Adaptation is a quality that has been fundamental in our evolution as a species. However, in recent times, we have begun to change our environment based on our needs and desires, rather than the other way around. It’s a real-life allegory where, in some situations, if you resist and try to use force and control, things get difficult.”

Dro Aviator

After falling into a Vortex I couldn’t help but relate the installation’s performance Shrink 01995 with the song Envasados ​​al vacuum by the Madrid techno-pop group Dro Aviator, published in 1983: “Seven mutant virgins and a suppliant prophet… Vacuum packed!” And with the “artificial wombs” of Altered Carbon to maintain clones, also part of the imagination cyberpunk transhumanist, a metaphor for the technology to develop extrauterine gestation that would free women from such biological tasks in a future society.

Nor have I been able to avoid evoking the eco-anxiety of young people in the face of a lack of air in a polluted world and life threatened by the climate emergency and the global crisis recently announced by the UN Secretary General. Antonio Guterres.

Mix of ecosystems

The audiovisual installation is more relaxing Visual Bird Sounds from the Australian Andy Thomas in which an immersive panoramic 3D animation presents us with an audiovisual mix of different ecosystems and bird songs from the Amazon, Australia, New Zealand and other places, recreated in a visual dance of a certain dreamlike nature that reminded me of immersion experiences in the interspecies communication.

According to LEV, artist Andy Thomas’ specialty is creating “sonic life forms,” ​​beautiful abstract figures that react to sound based on recordings and photographs of birds and other animals that he has collected through extensive field research in habitats. remote natural areas around the world.