Atmos Sphaerae
Virtual reality immersive experience by Tamiko Thiel, running time 9 minutes.Stereo VR for Oculus in 2021; rebuilt for large projection immersive video in 2022.
Original music by Christoph Reiserer; 3D audio sound engineering by Martin Rieger/VR Tonung
Originally created for the DiMoDA 4.0: Dis/Location VR exhibition, curated by Christiane Paul.
Premiered in 2021 at Gazelli Art House, London, as part of their gazell.io digital art program.
A deep time meditation on the changing elemental composition of the atmosphere of the planet Earth.
Atmos Sphaerae as VR experience plus user view output to HDMI wall projection. At Gazelli Art House London as part of the DiMoDA 4.0 exhibit “Dis/Location,” curated by Christiane Paul, 2022.
Atmos Sphaerae combines mythic imagery with the poetic beauty of the „Lewis structures“ scientific notation to make visible the atomic composition of molecules in the atmosphere. It takes the viewer from the pre Big Bang VOID to the mythic cosmic egg, to the disc of proto-planetary gases out of which the Earth formed, to the life-giving water, to the mythic islands of Mother Earth, then to the photosynthesizing cyanobacteria that trigger the Great Oxygenation Event that created the conditions for life as we know it to arise on Earth, and finally ends in a runaway greenhouse triggered by humans‘ voracious appetite for fossil fuels.
TEST of Atmos Sphaerae as immersive projection space. Recorded at ONX Studio New York/Onassis Foundation.
Atmos Sphaerae on wall-sized LED display, Istanbul Digital Art Festival (IDAF), curator Julie Walsh, 2023.
Video excerpts:
Atmos Sphaerae Scene 1: The VOID
Atmos Sphaerae Scene 2: Protoplanetary Disk
Atmos Sphaerae Scene 3: Volcanos in a magma ocean
Atmos Sphaerae Scene 4: Water World
Atmos Sphaerae Scene 5: Cyanobacteria and the Great Oxygenation Event
Atmos Sphaerae Scene 6: Oil Fields
Atmos Sphaerae Scene 7: Runaway Greenhouse