“Uncanny Echoes” questions our relationship with artistic creation.
Crédits photos : Sigrid Coggins
In a quest for enchantment and wonder, Sigrid Coggins created an installation called “Uncanny Echoes”, blending traditional art and virtual reality. During this experience, participants go through many sensory virtual environments while they draw. The spectators observe the influence of those universes on the work of this neo-artist. With this artwork, Sigrid Coggins paints a metaphor of our times where chaos can become entertainment. “Uncanny Echoes” is part of the selection of the immersive art festival Recto VRso, on April 10-13, 2025.
Questioning our relationship to artistic creation
Sigrid Coggins is a French plastic artist who explores interactive and participative processes. When she creates her installations and artworks, her goal is to involve the spectator in the creation. The artist likes to say that she works with virtual reality and humans.
New technologies are one of his preferred mediums for creating her art. The artist is a pioneer in the use of digital image languages in the 90s. But it’s interaction that inspires her work. Her previous production, “Serial Portraits”, was exhibited at Recto VRso in 2021 in an installation that invited the user to take part in the creative process.
With her new creation, “Uncanny Echoes”, Sigrid Coggins continues her quest for enchantment and the exploration of the dreamlike. In this new playful experience, the artist invites participants to immerse in multiple sensory universes and let their creative flow get influenced by sounds and images.
Between traditional art and virtual reality
With “Uncanny Echoes”, Sigrid Coggins questions disorder in art. She explained to us how her installation works: “Participants are invited to draw blindly the same portrait while each version is immersed in a different universe. There are five dimensions that combine specific visual and sound environments and transforme draw lines in real-time.” Each of these universes have sound and visual specific style: pop, baroque, cyberpunk, metal and futurist.
The user draws on a tablet and wears an audio and VR headset. At the beginning of the experience, they pick the universes he wants to explore. Throughout their creation, they are immersed in these environments that transform their drawing thanks to real time data capture. By being in sensory worlds with eclectic atmospheres, the neo-artist lets his creative process be unconsciously influenced. “Uncanny Echoes creates a bridge between conscious creation and unconscious influence.”
In this sense, Sigrid Coggins creates a “unique artistic tension between chaos and pop.” On the one hand, the participant draws blind, his creation is transformed in unpredictable ways and his artistic process is influenced by the different sensory universes. On the other hand, the virtual environments are full of playful and colorful effects and the experience is participative and interactive.
“Uncanny Echoes” is a metaphor of our times, “where chaos becomes entertaining, where disorder generates beauty, where randomness creates meaning.” The sensory installation of Sigrid Coggins is exhibited at the 8th edition of the immersive art festival Recto VRso, on April 10-13, 2025.
