The Dismal Sessions 01-021 is an online exhibition organized by Most Dismal Swamp in collaboration with “digital art parking lot” Silicon Valet and virtual gallery space New Art City. Most Dismal Swamp is, among many other things, an experimental art platform showcasing various creators working across digital media, installation, 3D design, film and electronic music.
Their first exhibition, Swamp Protocol, was presented as part of a site-specific installation at arebyte Gallery in London last year. The distributed film project explored the ecology of the ‘swamp-scape’ and how communities engage in a shared space. With The Dismal Sessions 01-021, MDS move to a custom 3D multi-user space, hosted by New Art City, to present a series of works from a range of different multimedia artists, including Terence Sharpe, Mark Leckey, Kid Xanthrax, Lexxi Doomer (whiterose) and Crisis, among many others.
Crisis Dismal Session 010 Installation
For Dismal Session 010, the UK-based 3D artist/music producer Crisis directed and animated a video to accompany their abstract club track “View from Nowhere.” The video is rendered beautifully with hi-def 3D character animations and effects. Crisis notes that the video came to them while working on Instagram face filters:
“Again and again I would see selfies in which the camera flash was reflected in a mirror, hiding the user’s face, which was sometimes framed by Snapchat’s cartoon dog ears. Like a ghost taking a picture, or like they had been consumed by something.”
They were also inspired by a selection from Neuromancer which speaks to the gray-scale, industrial aesthetics of the video’s setting. “View from Nowhere” tells the story of a social media influencer gone cyberpunk.
The virtual opening of Dismal Sessions 001-021 is today at 7:00PM BST /8:00 PM CEST for Europe & 7:00 PM PDT / 10:00PM EDT for the Americas. View here.