Artist Statement 

Immersive audio-visual animation, Dimensions variable, Video, fulldome projection environment, loudspeaker

facades is an audio-visual animation, conceived for performance in a fulldome. Fulldomes are immersive, dome-based projection environments, which – as an interface – allow full and multimodal integration of the viewers in a multi-sensory, potentially interactive, experiential space. The piece challenges traditional concepts of space, reality and perception, and the presented immersive experience is also an experience of instability.
Constructed from arrangements of point clouds, a virtual urban scene is developed in facades. The viewers seem like flaneurs, following streets that are flanked by classical facades. The movement of the viewers is virtual and is generated by the movement of the projected image space. facades is an audiovisual animation, conceived for performance in a Fulldome. Fulldomes are immersive, dome-based projection environments which – as an interface – allow the full and multimodal integration of the viewers in a multi-sensory, potentially interactive experiential space. Ruth Schnell makes use of the properties of this medium. which is comparatively young in the domain of the arts, to explore and challenge traditional concepts of space, reality and percep-tion – a central theme of her art. Ruth Schnell has designed a dramaturgy of disintegration and recon-struction. The seemingly ‘organic” facades and streetscapes appear elastic; diaphanous rows of houses overlay each other, panoramas may unfold. The viewer can move virtually in a horizontal fashion or into the depth of the configuration. The individual motion of the projected content simulates both spatial dynamics as well as a first-person perspective. Sound accompanies this moving image. It is based on the recording of the text No Such Agency, published in 1986 by media theorist Friedrich Kittler about the NSA. Whispered fragments of the text are acoustically placed in the projection, seeming to drift past, and coming together in the virtual space.
For the exhibition in Hong Kong (ISEA2016) facades was reconceived as an animation running on an Oculus Rift.

Media content and animation: Nikola Tasic
Media setup: Martin Kusch, Johannes Hucek
Sound: Alexandre St-Onge, Marie-Claude Poulin
ruthschnell.org/en/works/facades

• Ruth Schnell, born 1956 in Feldkirch (A). Media artist, curator, professor for media arts, Head of the Department of Digital Arts at the University of Applied Arts Vienna. ruthschnell.org/en