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TOC - The Occasion Collective

Echoes of Abstraction II and the Bottomless Pit of Outros

This installation by The Occasion Collective – commissioned in partnership with
The NewBridge Project – is a response to the legacy of abstraction which still
resonates in contemporary art practice. The Occasion Collective is comprised of
artist Adam Goodwin, musician Jamie Cook, sculptor James Pickering, and VR
animator Paul Trickett.
In a departure from abstraction’s defining trait of detachment from visible
reality, in this display The Occasion Collective have translated abstract forms
back into real space. Taking the form of a bedroom, bathroom, and kitchen,
the installation references one of our most familiar realities – the home –
whilst also alluding to the constructed realities of video games and film-sets.
This staged physical space is then abstracted one step further, becoming the
blueprint for a virtual reality environment in which we see the gallery and its
artworks reimagined as an uncanny domestic setting.
The result is a complex feedback relationship between the real and virtual
world, in which digital space mimics real space, whilst real space imitates
abstract space. This visual experience is heightened by the sound echoing
through the gallery, which is electronically engineered to emulate the timeless,
naturally occurring sound of the harmonic series. Whereas artists once sought
to convincingly imitate real space in flat paint, these artists now seek to extend
the imagined space of abstract painting into a multi-sensory, inhabitable
environment spanning both the physical world and the digital sphere.

Work by Jamie Cook, Adam Goodwin, James Pickering and Paul Trickett.

Review: https://corridor8.co.uk/article/laing-art-gallery-newbridge-project-vr/

More info: https://laingartgallery.org.uk/whats-on/echoes-of-abstraction-ii-and-the-bottomless-pit-of-outros

Funded by NICAP

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