works | Utopia Spa & Lounge 2021

4:22-minute screen-recording documentation of defunct online virtual reality space. 3D models, animation, video and sound.

Please enter Utopia Spa & Lounge... experience the weightlessness of the avatar....

An experiment in online utopia: creating a virtual space for genuine exchange and communion during COVID.  

All 3D modeling, animation, videos, sound by Erica Molesworth through discontinued Social VR platform Mozilla Hubs.

This virtual reality environment is made up of an immersive soundscape, video, and large flickering cell-like orbs. It rests on segments of landscape attempting to grow out of a green grid, and features monolithic two-faced heads that ask questions about utopia but whisper dystopia. I think of these faces as figures of pre- or post-human intelligences. The scene is contained within a giant geodesic dome - a ubiquitous symbol of utopian experiments, especially during the back-to-the-land era in the United States.  This virtual space is my attempt to hybridize my interests in spatial IRL video installation and the interactive world of video games.  I use both forms to explore how we locate ourselves as humans in both ‘real’ and ‘artificial’ worlds; in the space between a material Utopia and the weightlessness of the avatar...

Many thanks to VR Art Camp residency and Judit Navratil for the support.

Also a screen-recording of a panel discussion event on The Virtual Void held in the space here.

 – all modeling, animation, videos and sound by Erica Molesworth (2021)