Exhibitions

Art & Nature – a philosophical thought on virtual reality

by He Li

Here, we find ourselves in a garden: Eden, paradise, pure nature are all words that have been associated with such a space in history. The flora, fauna, and water culminate into a setting unstained by the dreary quality of the industrialized world. Yet, our whole surrounding is in fact constituted by Virtual Reality – the apex of artifice. Having grown out of the legacy of a modernist technological culture that saw humanity as the superior and the competitor of nature, Virtual Reality endeavors to reconstitute space itself through artifice. No longer does technology merely attempt to recreate things within space such as light, by means of lightbulbs, temperate climate, through air conditioners, or movement, with automobiles; we have now set up an alternative to spatiality in itself. This virtual space takes all our natural senses and removes them from nature, inserting artificial images, sounds, and motion detection in its place. Yet, we find ourselves in a garden, a simulation of nature in its purest form – an escape form the world of modern artifice.

We can choose either to create things that stand against nature as the modern world has, or to uncover the deep rationales and structures of nature, to make something that abides by nature and fulfill nature’s own purposes.

He li

But is the garden we see really supposed to represent a pure escape from artifice? Perhaps not. Are the paintings, statues, landscaping, and the labyrinth that we see not examples of artificial production – in other words, art? Long before the industrial age, philosophers used to consider nature an indisputable and objective good. Their understanding of nature was deeper and more extensive than ours; while we think of scenic parks and hiking paths when we think of nature–things fundamentally discontinuous with our modern lives of abstract efficiency and artifice, these philosophers certainly did not think of nature as a means of escape. In fact, for them, we can never escape from nature. The laws of nature govern our body, feelings, and reason. The same deep rationality that allows us to think and create also governs all the operation and growth of trees, animals, planets, and the whole cosmos. Thus, for these philosophers, we can choose either to create things that stand against nature as the modern world has, or to uncover the deep rationales and structures of nature, to make something that abides by nature and fulfill nature’s own purposes.

Now, we see Hellenistic statuary (The Winged Victory of Samothrace from RMN-Grand Palais Museum), a wooden boat (A Boat for One: Incoming Tide, Fort Stark by John Craig Freeman), digital photocollages (Pursuing Reality: Possibilities by Jo-Anne Green), virtual pyramid (A Lightning Tale by Lalie S. Pascual), and a labyrinth in this exhibition. Do these pieces do violence onto their natural surroundings like a factory or a highway, or do they act as familiar extensions of nature and its principles? What about the medium of Virtual Reality itself? According to the philosophers, only the primordial spark of the natural law in our own minds can tell us the answer; like knows like.

He Li is a PhD candidate in Arts & Religious Studies, Duke University and can be reached at [email protected]

Public screening at Queens Art Museum, New York, October 16, 2021

“Art Community Garden – A Virtual Reality Experience“

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Credit: The public event is made possible by support from City Art Corps, NYFA, Queens Art Museum. Photo courtesy of Lily Honglei Art Studio.

A day of art-making, performance, screenings, and poetry readings