Artist Statement

June 9-30, Recinte Modernista de Sant Pau, from the Beep Collection. Public event.

‘Non-dimensional Cities’ is an immersive cinematic experience in which participants journey through an endlessly unfolding virtual cityscape that expands over all axes. This dimensionless cityscape is constructed from a large collection of point clouds and sounds. While the user is standing on the controller platform and navigates through this virtual world, a sense of physical instability takes over.

The building blocks of the world are generated from depth map information and panoramic photographs obtained from Google Street View’s API. Depending on the user’s position in the virtual world these blocks are dynamically repositioned on a three-dimensional grid. By subtle manipulation of motion and sound, perspective distortion and shifts in balance Non-dimensional Cities unquestionably re-calibrates the viewer’s perception of dimensionality.

Artist: Marnix de Nijs
Sound design: Boris Debackere, Brussels, BE
Unity development: Pawel Homenko, Plewiska, PL
Spasm for Live, spatial audio mixer: V2_Lab, Rotterdam, NL
Sebastian Frish, AT
Courtesy: the BEEP collection ES
Source: source: http://www.marnixdenijs.nl/non-dimensional-cities.htm

• Marnix de Nijs (1970) is a Rotterdam (NL) based installation artist. Graduated as a sculptor in 1992, he focused his early career on sculpture, public space and architecture. Since the mid 90’s, he has been a pioneer in researching the experimental use of media and technologies in Art. Impelled by the idea that technology acts as a driving force behind cultural change and therefore capable of generating new experiences where societal habits and communication are rethought, his work thrives on the creative possibilities offered by new media, while critically examining their impact on contemporary society and human perception. The interface between the body and technology forms an important basis for De Nijs’s work. Technology must literally merge, become absorbed into the body so that it becomes a co-determiner of perception. And here perception not only refers to how external stimuli are interpreted by the five senses, but also the feelings that come from within the body itself, the information that is derived from one’s own muscles and nerves (the technical term being proprioception). Because De Nijs’s work often involves the entire body of the observer, they therefore become less of an observer and more of a participator; someone who experiences the work. The techniques employed in the construction of his work mediate this experience. Source: http://www.marnixdenijs.nl/biography.htm