A Cathedral Dreamer

Opening tomorrow, Monday, January 6 at 2 pm slt at LEA6, as part of the LEA Full Sim Art Series, is A Cathedral Dreamer, featuring fractal artworks by Gem Preiz. I'm always on the fence as to the viability of exhibiting real life artwork in a virtual space: it seems as though we might as well view their images on the Web, if not more optimally in person. But here, perhaps because the artworks aren't really representational, and are, at their very origin, digital, they seem to pass muster. You'll receive a lengthy notecard when you arrive, and it's worth reading the text to gain an understanding and appreciation for Gem's objectives and perspectives.

The works are exhibited in four galleries, situated east, west, north and south from the central landing point, each of which is intended to convey a theme (and should be visited in that order). Although he excuses what he describes as his poor building abilities, Gem's ability to stitch together the enormous images in a couple of the galleries was impressive—in particular I couldn't help but be amazed by the scale of the largest work in the third gallery, a massive image that measures about 120 meters wide by 70 meters tall, comprised of what appears to be sixty textured panels (detail, middle image). While the artistic aesthetic here isn't one that strongly interests me (and admittedly I'm not well versed in fractal art), I'd still recommend a visit. The exhibition will be up through the month of January.

Edit: Oops! I posted the wrong date for the opening because of a cut and paste error. Fixed, and thanks to Inara Pey for the alert!