LEVI GLASS

2020

Oct 2

Cineorama (Baptizo video), 2019
new media
8:12

RIVERSIDE PARK
(entry 6pm to 10pm nightly)

Cineorama is an 8-channel, panoramic cinema that merges architecture, cinema and installation to investigate perspective. The interior of the cinema immerses viewers in a full 360-degree series of projections, bringing together virtual reality and multi-linear perspective in an audience-engaged, cinematic setting. The video projected on all eight screens is entitled Baptizo (Latin for “to immerse”). The Cineorama structure itself is a study of the 15th century Baptistery of Saint John in Florence, Italy. It was used by Filippo Brunelleschi to study and formulate his concept of linear perspective, a mathematic system for creating the realistic illusion of three-dimensional depth on a two-dimensional surface. This system had a long-lasting effect on the history of picture making and our understanding of perspective.

A re-creation of the eight sides of the Baptistery, Cineorama integrates today’s technology with research and design methods from the early Renaissance, including philosophical toys like the Kaleidoscope, the Flip Book, and the Mechanical Paradox. Glass’ work explores how philosophy, art and early experimentations might come together with domestic forms, such as the Gazebo. Glass’ interest in European Salon culture is part of this exploration. Offering a dynamic viewing experience for the viewer, his work is a platform for acts of play and an opportunity to shift how we see things around us. By creating a modern hybrid of architecture and image as a way to explore multi-point perspective, Glass offers a new perspective to represent and understand the visual world.

This project reflects Glass’ ongoing interest in exploring how images are created and experienced in contemporary culture in relation to technology and viewing habits. The combination of traditional and modern building techniques and materials used in Cineorama, and the merging of new media with European Renaissance approaches to perspective in the video Baptizo, is central to Glass’ reflection on his personal hybrid identity as both a Métis and European descendant.

Levi Glass is a Canadian artist of Métis and German descent. He has exhibited internationally in Germany, Switzerland, Italy, the UK and frequently across Canada. He holds a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree from Thompson Rivers University, Kamloops, BC, and a Masters’ of Fine Arts degree from the University of Victoria, Victoria, BC. Glass’ research practice focuses on the mediation between images and objects that often result in new technologies in familiar forms. His artistic practice includes sculpture, installation, photography and new media as a means to experiment with a wide range of contemporary issues from self-representation to politics to phenomenology. He currently practices art in Victoria, BC and works in Indigenous Education at Camosun College, Victoria, BC.

Cineorama draws on research supported by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council and the financial support of the Canada Council for the Arts and British Columbia Council for the Arts.

leviglass.ca
@leviglass.ca

View the online Cineorama

Desktop / Oculus > http://www.cineorama.ca
Mobile > https://leviglass.ca/Cineorama