Hybrid Art Show ‘Expanding Dreamscapes’ Manifests In Berlin & VR Chat (Q&A)

There are hybrid physical/virtual immersive art pieces and then there are HYBRID immersive art pieces and artist Katharina Haverich’s EXPANDING DREAMSCAPES is definitely the later.

Taking stills from moments inside VRChat worlds and turning them into acrylic on glass prints, the artist is launching a twin gallery showing of the new series both in Berlin and inside VRChat itself. A complete circuit of creation and display, that the artist describes as “former fluid liveness from virtual reality hardening in stills on acrylic glass in the analog world. It’s the disconnection of shared experiences from hardware, the internet, electricity, servers and harddrives.”

With an opening on June 30th both in Berlin and on VRChat, we checked in with the artist via the once hi-tech medium of email.

No Proscenium: Before we get into the how, what is the origin of the EXPANDING DREAMSCAPES project?

Katharina Haverich: During the pandemic I decided to try and keep working on the same things I did before: running workshops, conducting interviews, creating shows. I transferred all of what I did from real life to the social VR app VRChat. A lot of nice — and new — collaborations with experts and newbees came into being.

I set up a Virtual Gang with young women from Leipzig to learn about action art. I founded the Virtual Club of Dangerous Women to interview women about their violent dreams. Together with my colleague Lenn Blaschke, we founded neo.NEULAND to talk about the challenges mothers experiences as artists.

Sometimes my colleagues and I streamed what we did. We usually filmed everything. I felt that so many meaningful situations and exchanges took place, I can’t just continue doing what I do without taking a short break to look at what happened there, in this weird, buggy, playful, abstract medium.

I asked myself how to best communicate to people who haven’t heard of or tried VR before, what I have experienced in there. So I went through all the footage and selected stills that I feel have the potential to express situations and moods.

NP: What will visitors to the galleries — be it in Berlin or in VRChat encounter?

KH: They will see a spectrum of what social VR (some people call it the metaverse, I’m careful of that, because of the company Meta and how it claims it invented the term when it was really Neil Stephenson in his novel “Snow Crash”) can be: a playground, a place for learning, for unexpected encounters, for sharing intimate dreams.

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The images (digital in my gallery in VRChat, printed on fluorescent acrylic glass IRL) show colleagues, friends and guests as avatars in very specific situations. Together with my art director Lucas Kuster I arranged some of the images as diptychons or triptychons to try and present some situations as a sequence to help understand what took place. Some of the images are accompanied by text that was said in the actual situation. I’m very curious as to how easy people who are new to the medium will find it to relate to the images. And I’m curious how social VR regulars will be able to connect to what they see.

NP: What inspired you to make a hybrid show, as opposed to just exhibiting the pieces physically?

KH: Last year, I made a world in VRChat called dreams about girls together with the technological artist Roman Miletich. As I said earlier, I interviewed women about their violent dreams. In this world, I built three areas by the dreamers reenatch, Athena Electronica and butternut babe. The world has had over 10,000 visitors in under one year and I never advertised it anywhere. I felt that maybe there is an audience there. I’m particularly interested in trying to find ways of connecting audiences in VR and — in this case — Berlin. The instance of kathav (that’s me :)) will be streamed into the physical space during the opening times of the gallery (12pm-20pm Berlin time). So the virtual audience — as they spawn) will be visible to Berliners…

I’m also wondering, if these audiences want to be connected or not at all. I’m working with the researcher Regina Bäck to interview people in the gallery space in Berlin and in VRChat about what their experiences and desires are in regards to this.

NP: Do you think of the physical & digital versions as reflections or in conversation with each other?

KH: I surely hope they are in conversation with each other! I’d be excited if someone was interested in owning a digital copy of an image, knowing that someone else has the physical copy at home.

NP: What does working in VRChat afford you as an artist?

KH: I feel like I can show my work 24/7 to a worldwide audience. After having worked in performance / performance art for over 10 years, it’s very calming to be able to present things without renting spaces, paying performers, advertising shows, selling tickets etc. I’m under the impression that people spend time in VR and are looking for experiences, things they haven’t seen and may not be able to see IRL ever. The things that I built there would be so expensive to realize physically. Also, I’m hopeful that people see my work who may not usually go and see art. I feel like galleries, theatres, museums and the like are highly exclusive and seemingly reserved for well-educated people from a certain background. I’m aware of various challenges the medium has (cost of hardware, accessibility for people with disabilities, access to internet etc) but I also see that there may be different audiences out there who may feel like they can just come and take a look, without any pressure.

EXPANDING DREAMSCAPES’ physical gallery exhibition opens with a private view in Berlin June 30, 2022, at 6.00 pm local time, with the exhibition open July 1–3, 2022, 12.00 pm — 8.00 pm at the Flutgraben 3 gallery, 12435 Berlin.

The VRChat World “dreams about girls” will be open 24/7 June 30 — July 3, 2022 with a guided tour on July 2, 2022, 5.00 pm (UTC+2). Contact assistenz@katharinahaverich.de for more info on the guided tour.

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