{"id":58482,"date":"2017-10-26T15:37:27","date_gmt":"2017-10-26T13:37:27","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.sleek-mag.com\/?p=58482"},"modified":"2017-10-26T15:37:27","modified_gmt":"2017-10-26T13:37:27","slug":"olivia-mcgilchrist-jonkunnu-jamaica-vr","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.sleek-mag.com\/de\/article\/olivia-mcgilchrist-jonkunnu-jamaica-vr\/","title":{"rendered":"Olivia McGilchrist: The Artist Recreating a Jamaican Tradition in VR"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"size--small\"><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-58483 size-full\" src=\"https:\/\/www.sleek-mag.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/10\/jamaica1.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"1500\" height=\"1000\" \/> Olivia McGilchrist, &#8220;Jonkonnu-Gens Inconnus&#8221;, 3 screen video still, 2017<\/p>\n<p>Even within artistic contexts, tech remains a heavily male-dominated industry. And when you add intersectionality to the equation, western perspectives and experiences receive the lion&#8217;s share of representation. However, there is a handful of women who are challenging this. From artist <a href=\"https:\/\/www.sleek-mag.com\/de\/2017\/04\/10\/elisabeth-sutherland\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Elisabeth Sutherland <\/a>to designers <a href=\"https:\/\/www.sleek-mag.com\/de\/?s=faustine&amp;submit=Search\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Faustine Steinmetz<\/a> und <a href=\"https:\/\/www.sleek-mag.com\/de\/2016\/02\/10\/anouk-wipprecht-we-need-more-badass-girls-in-technology\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Anouk Wipprecht<\/a>, women have been challenging the status quo, while have gradually been coming up through the ranks in this very broad industry. Among them is Olivia McGilchrist, the visual artist using virtual reality (VR) to tell stories from her native Jamaica.<br \/>\nBorn in Kingston to a French mother and Jamaican father, McGilchrist moved away from the island when she was four, only to return decades later. Having started her career as a photographer, she moved onto video, and is now working with immersive technologies. \u201cI got into the possibilities of VR mostly because of its masking aspect and the potential of having infinite gallery space,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n<p class=\"size--small\"><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-58496 size-full\" src=\"https:\/\/www.sleek-mag.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/10\/jamaica4-2.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"1500\" height=\"1000\" \/> Olivia McGilchrist, &#8220;Jonkonnu-Gens Inconnus&#8221;, Oculus Rift and wooden structure, 2017<\/p>\n<p>In one of her latest pieces, \u201cJonkonnu-Gens Inconnus\u201d (2017) on show at <a href=\"https:\/\/www.sleek-mag.com\/de\/2017\/08\/07\/screen-city-biennial-norway\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Screen City Biennial<\/a> in Stavanger, the artist created a virtual video installation of traditional Jamaican carnival Jonkonnu performers. The piece is experienced using the Oculus Rift headset while sitting on a wooden platform the artist built especially for it. \u201cNot many people outside the Caribbean know about this particular carnival,\u201d she explains. \u201cThey are usually more familiar with the more flamboyant kind. But in fact, carnival started out with being about celebrating identity and role play.\u201d<\/p>\n<div class=\"entry-content-asset videofit\"><iframe src=\"https:\/\/player.vimeo.com\/video\/128493444?dnt=1&amp;app_id=122963\" width=\"720\" height=\"405\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"autoplay; fullscreen; picture-in-picture; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\"><\/iframe><\/div>\n<p>For the project McGilchrist worked with Carlton Walters, head of the Carlton Walters Jonkonnu Band, who got the team together and gave them Gopro cameras so they could also film themselves. \u201cWe walked from the top of the hill down Constant Spring Road towards downtown,\u201d she says. \u201cJonkonnu is a practice of dance, dressing up and hustle, so the band collect money for the performance while interacting with the people along the way.\u201d<br \/>\nBy filming such an ancient practice with the latest technology, Olivia McGilchrist is forcing the viewer to think about it differently, as well as giving a new perspective on the themes of othering and masking. Masking is a subject that permeates the artist\u2019s practice. She&#8217;s used it to investigate her own identity as a white-passing person of mixed heritage via her alter-ego Whitey, as well as exploring the role of different masks, including the VR headset and the structures she builds.<\/p>\n<p class=\"size--small\"><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-58484 size-full\" src=\"https:\/\/www.sleek-mag.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/10\/jamaica2.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"1500\" height=\"1000\" \/> Olivia McGilchrist, &#8220;Jonkonnu-Gens Inconnus&#8221;, 3 screen video still, 2017<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe main idea is to give you a sense of privacy and intimacy and make you become an art object as a viewer,\u201d she says about the wooden structure. Yet she found more reasons for it when showing the work in Jamaica. \u201cA lot of VR experiences on a larger scale can seem very alienating,\u201d she says. \u201cI find that odd and a very western thing. In Jamaica there\u2019s a lot more emphasis on security and personal safety and I don&#8217;t think people would embrace the idea of blocking your vision in such an open environment.\u201d<br \/>\nThe artist is also vocal about the way new technologies sometimes exclude other cultures and their experiences and particularities. For instance, McGilchrist highlights that the VR headsets don\u2019t account for voluminous hair. \u201cI\u2019ve only dug into that recently, but because of my heritage I\u2019m constantly questioning why there\u2019s this sense of white male supremacy in tech,\u201d she says. However, there are signs of hope. \u201cI really feel that both the software and hardware will benefit from being developed outside of the western context,\u201d she concludes. \u201dI hope that will generate a very different form of engagement and results both commercially and artistically.\u201d<br \/>\n<b>Screen City, the Biennial dedicated to video art in public spaces, continues in Stavanger, Norway, until 31 October 2017<\/b><\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Olivia McGilchrist&#8217;s \u201cJonkonnu-Gens Inconnus\u201d is a VR installation exploring the traditional Jamaican Jonkonnu parade. We spoke to her about ancient rites from new perspectives, masking, and white male supremacy in tech.<\/p>","protected":false},"author":28,"featured_media":58484,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_kad_post_transparent":"","_kad_post_title":"","_kad_post_layout":"","_kad_post_sidebar_id":"","_kad_post_content_style":"","_kad_post_vertical_padding":"","_kad_post_feature":"","_kad_post_feature_position":"","_kad_post_header":false,"_kad_post_footer":false,"_kad_post_classname":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[11856,139],"tags":[3941,38,1978,9477,2730,9478,9479,9480,9481,9075,1045,9482,9483,4895,2193],"class_list":["post-58482","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-sleek-art","category-art","tag-anouk-wipprecht","tag-art","tag-art-meets-technology","tag-carlton-walters","tag-faustine-steinmetz","tag-french-jamaican","tag-jonkonnu","tag-jonkonnu-gens-inconnus","tag-kingston","tag-olivia-mcgilchrist","tag-performance","tag-screen-city-biennial","tag-stavanger","tag-tech","tag-vr"],"acf":{"main_category":null,"legacy":"1","exclude_from_ads":null,"hero_title":null,"subtitle":null,"hero":null,"teasers":null,"facebook_image":null,"related_articles":null,"next_article":null,"sleek_card_focus":null,"content":null},"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v19.1 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Olivia Gilchrist: The Artist Recreating an Ancient Jamaican Tradition in VR<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Olivia McGilchrist&#039;s \u201cJonkonnu-Gens Inconnus\u201d is a VR piece about the Jamaican Jonkonnu parade. 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