Levi Glass
Artist Bio. Levi Glass has exhibited internationally at venues in Germany, Switzerland, and Italy, and at national venues in Yukon, Alberta, and frequent exhibitions in BC. He holds a BFA degree from Thompson Rivers University and is completing an MFA degree from the University of Victoria. Glass’ practice focuses on the mediation between images and objects that often result in new technologies in familiar forms. In addition to his own research and art practice, Glass has been an assistant preparator at the Kamloops Art Gallery, a member of the programming committee at Arnica Artist-Run Centre, a research assistant to The Camera Obscura Project and artist assistant to Donald Lawrence, Kevin Schmidt and Cedric Bomford. He currently lives and works in Victoria, BC, Canada.
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Cineorama
2019
16” x 16” 10”
Architecture
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Panoptic Machine
2017
30” x 30” 8”
Sculpture and Installation
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Globeachine
2018
24” x 24” 8”
Photographic Sculpture
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Artist Statement:
I am a creator and mediator of new and old technologies. My artistic practice increasingly involves the integrated use of technology with art to immerse audiences and expand the capabilities of traditional mediums of photography, sculpture, and most recently architecture. I have become increasingly interested with how an artistic practice can develop new technologies through acts of experimental play and how creating situations for group viewing can lead to discussions and unexpected discoveries. It this interest in experimental play and group viewing that grounds my use of integrated media.
My major research projects have focused on expanding the use of specific technologies within the realm of art making. My first research project, The Elasticity of the Projected Form studied how artists use projectors in alternative ways to create an active viewing environment. This resulted in a series of work that brought together the sculptural object with the optical device in order to create images. My current research project, A Structure for Virtual Reality (VR) continues this interest with a focus towards how VR can be integrated with cinematic architecture and the practices of installation-based video artists.
In the current digital image climate driven by social media and smartphones, there is an apathy for the inherent object hood of images and the devices used to capture them. Likewise, there has been an intense shift towards principally the private viewing and sharing of images. My goal in adapting technological forms has been to resurrect the method of group viewing of images, phenomena, and scientific experiments developed in the Renaissance by the early Aristocracy, such as seen in the elaborate spectacles of the Phantasmagoria presented by Etienne-Gaspard Robertson in Paris, or the similar spirit resurrected by Expanded Media artists in the 1960’s.
With this in mind, I have generated new devices and spaces for audiences to see phenomenon and experimentations with technology together. For example, my latest project Cineorama creates an inviting space for the group viewing of virtual reality and multi-channel cinema and hosts lectures and public discussions in order to spur group discovery. This project concentrates on integrating artistic mediums such as film, architecture, and sculpture in the exploration of multi-linear perspective.