Recto VRso, the International Festival of Immersive and Interactive Art, takes place every year at the same time as Laval Virtual.
Crédits photos : Laval Virtual 2023 / Prisma
Back in 2024, Recto VRso will be at Le Quarante (Laval) for its 7th edition, from 11 to 14 April. This time, the festival will be free! The festival has already launched its call for projects to exhibit in the Art & VR Gallery during the event, on the theme of “Real Time / Virtual Time”.
For the occasion, we meet the Recto VRso team: Judith GUEZ, Founder and Artistic Director of the festival, and Julien LOMET, Cultural Coordinator for the event.
As previously mentioned, Judith GUEZ is the Founder and Artistic Director of the Recto VRso Festival. “I am an artist – researcher – curator of art and virtual and mixed reality. My research-creation studies the emergence of new artistic forms between the real and the virtual, both in the creation and the exhibition of works (Dr. Université Paris 8 Lab. INREV, University of Versailles UVSQ – Lab. CHCSC)”.
Julien LOMET is in charge of cultural coordination for the event. “As a doctoral student and researcher in Digital Image and Virtual Reality (Universities of Paris 8 and Rennes 2, and the Hybrid laboratory of IRISA-Inria Rennes), I study collaborative forms around works in virtual reality, from the creative process to performance”.
Can you tell us about Recto VRso?
Judith : In 2018, together with Laval Virtual, I created the Recto VRso arts festival to explore artistic creation that uses different digital mediums, such as virtual and mixed reality. Each year, an annual theme guides the exhibitions in a multidimensional search: artists of different status (established or emerging artists, artist-researchers and students, etc.), from different disciplines (digital art, dance, art and video games, art and robotics, etc.), and from different countries, are invited to show their work in shared spaces.
Julien : It’s an event that brings together the real and the virtual, the professional and the family, and emerging and established artists! It’s an emulsion of poetic propositions questioning technology, science and digital art.
Judith : Yes, we want to offer a look at current artistic practices, but we also want to provide a time during the festival for exchanges and encounters.
Call for entries for the Art & VR Gallery: an exhibition featuring a dozen international artists
Each year, the Recto VRso festival explores new forms of immersive and interactive art, between the real and the virtual.
The works selected must resonate with the theme, and invite the exploration of emerging expressions using virtual, augmented or mixed reality, immersive devices, interactive interfaces, robotics, multi-dimensional spatialisation, presence effects, and so on. Hybrid and transdisciplinary approaches are particularly welcome.
Judith, can you tell us more about the theme of the Art & VR Gallery exhibition?
The theme of this year’s Recto VRso 2024 Festival is “Real Time / Virtual Time”.
Real time can have several meanings depending on the context. In computing, it is used to describe an experience whose temporality is modelled as closely as possible on our perception of time, for example with an interaction that feels fluid and natural.
But then… what would virtual time be? The virtual has its own codes for the space and unfolding of experience: what then are the codes of virtual time, and its representations? How do they fit into artistic, immersive and interactive experiences?
Between real and virtual time, this call opens up a number of areas for artistic exploration, including :
- The representation of virtual time (realistic, imaginary);
- Possible hybridisations between real and virtual time;
- The transition between real and virtual time;
- The play of illusions between real and virtual time;
- Questions about the codes for representing time in virtual worlds;
- Paradoxes and explorations specific to the virtual;
- The aesthetic relationship between the work and the viewer.
The call for projects is open until 1 December 2023! You can apply by clicking on this link.
A new format for the 7th edition
In 2024, the Recto VRso festival will consist of three distinct parts:
1) The Art&VR Gallery
The Art & VR Gallery is the official exhibition of Recto VRso, offering more than a dozen international artists the chance to exhibit works exploring an annual theme. The projects selected following the call for entries will be exhibited in this part of the festival.
2) The R&C Lab
The Research & Creation Laboratory promotes artistic diversity by inviting established artists, students, researchers and collectives to take over different spaces. University and school projects in digital creation, guest curators, collectives, pioneering and emerging artists.
3) The Xtended part
New this year, Recto VRso expands on the weekend with the “Xtended” section, inviting you to explore digital technology through entertaining and immersive experiences.
