ruins and nature transformed into immersive digital visuals
japanese born and berlin-based artist ryoichi kurokawa works with 3D data of architecture, ruins, and nature to produce immersive, mind-bending VR installations, recordings, and concert pieces. among his various digitally-generated works —which have been exhibited across the world at international festivals and museums including tate modern, centre pompidou, and venice biennale— ‘s.asmbli / subassemblies’ pursues the relationship between nature and the human-made through a perspective of architectural scale. the project was presented in the form of a concert piece at biennale némo in paris, in october 2021, while it has also been exhibited as an installation wall at the OCT-LOFT creative festival of shenzhen, in 2020.
all images courtesy of ryoichi kurokawa
weaving a new digital, architectural timeline
in ‘s.asmbli / subassemblies’, ryoichi kurokawa (find more here) specifically explores the relationship between nature and the human, translating his findings into multimedia installations that adopt an architectural character. the main sources of this project are 3D data acquired by laser scanning of human-made architecture, ruins, and nature. those are then distorted and reconstructed into each module as subassemblies to create a renewed timeline with layers of order and disorder, while exposing the force of nature and art. ruins, nature-invaded buildings, and architectures in disrepair are superimposed, rebuilt dynamically, and rendered in multi-layered depths.
the concert version of ‘subassemblies’ is composed of a single screen, surround lighting, and a 4.1ch sound system. meanwhile, the ‘re-assembli’ installation version is developed by re-plotting materials and building them into space with 4 surround screens and 4.1ch sound. ‘s.asmbli’ is developed as an alternative rendering in the form of a VR 360º piece and ‘s.asmbli [ wall ]’ is another immersive cube projection with quadraphonic installation.
