750 words

Char Davies - Artist Biography

Canadian artist Char Davies is internationally recognized for pioneering artworks using the technologies of virtual reality. She was also a founding director of a world-leading 3D software company.

Originally a painter and filmmaker, Davies transitioned to digital media in the mid-80s when she began exploring three-dimensional computer imaging as a means of expanding depth beyond the picture plane. In 1987, she became a founding director of Softimage, the 3D software company whose intuitive design philosophy reconfigured the computer graphics industry. A developer of software tools used for special effects in such landmark films as Jurassic Park, Softimage held its initial public offering on NASDAQ in 1992 and was ultimately acquired by Microsoft. During her 10 years at the company—as its first vice-president (1988-1994) and director of visual research (1994-1997)—Davies began adapting the 3D software for her own artistic purposes.

Her earliest efforts included the award-winning Interior Body Series (1990-1993), 3D digital still images exhibited as large-scale light boxes in Canada, the US, Europe and Australia. Characterized by her painterly aesthetic—of luminous transparency and spatial ambiguity—as well as thematically-entwined references to landscape and the subjectively-felt interior body, these images established Davies' concerns in the digital field. Foremost among such concerns was challenging the bias of 3D computer graphics towards objective realism and linear perspective, and suggesting an experientially rich alternative.

In 1993, Davies began exploring the emerging technology of virtual reality, culminating in the immersive virtual environment Osmose, which premiered at the Museé d'art contemporain de Montreal in 1995. Intent on subverting conventional notions of VR as a disembodied medium, Davies and her team developed an innovative interface which uses breathing and balance to enable participants to "float" through translucent landscapes. Integrating 3D digital imagery and spatially-localized sound with full-body immersion and interaction—and multiple levels of transparency—Osmose has been internationally acclaimed as a landmark in new media art. Unprecedented in its experiential effect on participants, Osmose has been described by one historian as "receiving more attention in the international discussion of media art than perhaps any other contemporary work".

Davies' next immersive artwork was Ephémère, which premiered at the National Gallery of Canada in 1998. Like Osmose and her earlier work, Ephémère goes beyond static objective depictions of landscape and the interior body to present them as spatially-encompassing, fluxing environments. In addition to making use of the proprioceptive processes of breath and balance, Ephémère introduces gaze as a means of interacting with the virtual realm. While primarily designed for solitary immersion via a stereoscopic head-mounted display, Osmose and Ephémère are also performative works whereby viewers can observe and listen as "immersants" explore within.

At the time of this writing, more than 35,000 people have been individually immersed in Osmose and Ephémère. The works have been exhibited at such venues as San Francisco's Museum of Modern Art; Ricco/Maresca Gallery, New York; Barbican Art Centre, London; Australian Center for the Moving Image, Melbourne; Museum of Monterrey, Mexico, and the Canadian museums named above. They have received extensive media coverage, ranging from art and cultural publications (e.g. Art in America, World Art, Metropolis, New Scientist) to the mass media (NBC, CBS, New York Times, Wired), as well as academic journals and books, and documentary films. The first monograph on her work, Char Davies' Immersive Virtual Art and the Essence of Spatiality (by Laurie McRobert) was published by University of Toronto Press in 2007. Davies was recently awarded an Honorary Doctorate of Fine Arts from the University of Victoria, B.C., Canada.

Over the past 15 years Davies has lectured widely, including at universities such as Cambridge, Stanford and UCLA; museums such as the Tate Britain and Museum of Modern Art, NY; and conferences across North America, Europe, Australia and Japan. She has also written philosophically about the paradoxes of virtual space, envisioning it as an experiential arena for transforming habitual perceptions and affirming our embodiedness in the world. Her essays have appeared in numerous anthologies, published by such presses as MIT, Cambridge and Princeton. In 2005, she completed a doctorate in new media philosophy at CAiiA, University of Plymouth, UK.

In her 25-year art-practice, Davies has moved beyond painting's two dimensions through 3D computer imaging to the enveloping spatiality of immersive VR. More recently, her attention has expanded from virtual to actual place. Working with boulders, streams and forest—her iconic elements—she is currently shaping more than 500 acres of land in southern Québec. When not on her land, Davies lives in San Francisco.