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An augmented realıty experıence by abner preıs
Underneath the Wings of a Butterfly is a journey where we follow a butterfly through a contemporary mask of happiness.
This mask is shiny and golden, plastic and metal – but behind it is a world where nature is decaying, climate is drastically changing, the fever of revolution is boiling and the planet we live on is reinventing itself. The experience invites you to rediscover this world and plant seeds from the past, in order to contribute to a hopeful future. Abner Preis is an artist and storyteller who conveys a hopeful message with his colourful, humorous and critical installations. He combines simple drawings and cheerful, collage-like backgrounds with experience and interaction in digital worlds.
For Underneath the Wings of a Butterfly, Abner developed an Augmented Reality installation where the participant is lead by an augmented butterfly through a world that is influenced by humans, but eventually gets taken over by technological butterflies, bees and low poly flowers. The AR installation provides access to a world where urgent issues such as climate change, the refugee crisis, economic recession and consumerism become almost tangible.
This experience was commissioned by TETEM in ties with their Society 5.1 program theme. In this program theme Tetem researches – together with makers – the consequences our choices have on society and how technology can help us solve bottlenecks. Abner Preis developed his first project in Virtual Reality at Tetem for the exhibition Walk-in Worlds. Since then, Virtual Reality and Augmented Reality have become an important medium within his practice to bring stories, drawings and collages spatially to life.
TEAM
CREATOR
Abner Preis is a story-teller whose work is rooted in personal aspirations to give one hope in a situation that seems hopeless, to transfer the ability to laugh at sadness, and to seduce viewers into seeing beauty in bleak objects by offering compositions that play to emotion before aesthetics. What his extensive research, sensitivity and awareness provide is the simple and extremely difficult ability to tell a story with visuals that can be felt before they are understood. You can take it in at first glance, but generally don’t bargain for what happens once you’ve opened the door. What you see is what you get. There’s just a whole lot stacked beneath that.
Creative technologıst
Sjoerd van Acker is a New Media Artist and VR developer working under the name NO FISH. A recent graduate of University of the Arts Utrecht, he is interested in the cultural issues at the root of the climate crisis, resulting in experiences where you see yourself and your environment differently. The experiences he creates arise out of experiments with new-technology, embracing unexpected outcomes. Besides his personal work he makes virtual art exhibitions for museums and artists and works with directors and artists to try to realize their VR experiences.
PRODUCER
Firat Sezgin is a producer working in Film and in New Media with a background in producing feature length films as well as documentaries. After graduation from Emerson College (2011) with a BA in Producing for Film, he returned to Istanbul where he worked in different positions in various productions. In his last five years in Istanbul he joined the largest Turkish studio BKM, where he worked in national and international licensing & distribution as well as more than 20 co-productions. He co-founded Institute of Time to work on independent projects including 3 feature creative documentaries. His last VR work Floodplain premiered in Venice Film Festival. His latest documentary co-production world premiered in the IFFR 2020. He now resides in the Netherlands.