VR Artwork set in 1960s spook ride to feature at Virginia Tech’s Cubefest
Joel Zika, PhD
Assistant Professor specialising in experience design, immersive media in public space, themed entertainment and virtual production
Over the past two years, projection artist Joel Zika has been hanging out in the darkest, spookiest place he could find, making the strangest artwork of his career.
In 2016 Joel found a classic dark ride tucked away in the small town of Oxford, Alabama.
‘It was the kind of ride you remember from your childhood, rickety and dark but amazingly fun’ said Joel.
The ride actually dates back to the 1960s and was salvaged by its owner Jeremy Cruse from an abandoned amusement park in Florida. The ride isn’t used through the summer so Joel asked if he could use the ride to stage an art installation.
Zika creates projection pieces for galleries and festivals jumped at the chance to create a work using one of the oldest forms of immersive media.
“I’ve studied Dark Rides for years, having the chance to make an artwork in one was amazing” said Joel
The original props of witches and ghost were hidden temporarily and Joel got to work building ten projection installations scattered throughout the ride. The work uses digital projection to create illusionistic 3d mapped images on the walls of the space which surround riders on their journey.
The work took over a month to install in the blistering June heat and never took any passengers on board. Instead of opening to the public, a Virtual Reality camera system was built to capture the ride from beginning to end in every direction. Special low light cameras captured the installations from the ride cart, creating an enormous panoramic image of the work. The work can now be experienced by people anywhere in the world via a VR headset or 360 screen.
The ride will be featured as part of CUBEFEST, a festival of immersive sound and vision hosted by Virginia Tech’s Moss Arts Center. The work will be screened on a two story high, 360 degree projection screen.
The festival runs from August 8-11, 2019 with tickets available in late July
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