What it’s like to ‘step inside’ virtual reality artworks, and how to create a mean 3D doodle yourself
Bernice Chan dons a VR headset and walks through a 3D Chinese ink landscape drawn by Chinese artist Yang Yongliang using Tilt Brush, a new Google tool – then has a go at making art herself
Virtual reality isn’t confined to the realms of video gaming and film. Artists now have the tools to create works of art that viewers can literally put themselves in and explore.
Google has developed a virtual reality app called Tilt Brush. A user, wearing a VR headset, holds joysticks – one in each hand, one for painting, the other to switch to different colours and functions in order to paint and draw in 3D.
For this week’s Art Basel Hong Kong, fair organisers and Google Arts & Culture invited five artists, chosen for their use of different mediums, to try out Tilt Brush by Google: Yang Yongliang, Robin Rhode, Sun Xun, Cao Fei and Boychild.
SCMP.com got a chance to look at three of the pieces by wearing a simple VR headset called Daydream with a smartphone attached to the goggles. The first was a BMW that streaked in front of me with what seemed like fire coming out of its wheels. Next was a sea world of jellyfish by Sun Xun. The last was Yang’s Chinese ink landscape painting, which, viewed with the VR headset, made me feel like I was right in the forest he’d drawn (complete with a deer).
Having got used to the idea that I could look up, down and around 360 degrees, it was time to create art myself – OK, maybe not art, but at least some doodling.
