Metaverse Landscapes: Patchwork
Iframe, 2023
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About the artwork
In science fiction, the metaverse is a hypothetical iteration of the Internet as a single, universal, and immersive virtual world, facilitated by the use of virtual reality (VR) and augmented reality (AR) headsets. However, much like the ostensibly ‘global’ business landscape, the metaverse is, in fact, fractured—comprising a patchwork of territories and/or markets, operating according to systems with varying degrees of compatibility. Rather than speaking of a single metaverse one should, instead, speak of many. Against utopian ‘unity’, balkanization rules the day. Is this the future, or a crooked kaleidoscope? Is it both, or something else? In lieu of an answer, Simon Denny offers us a meta-Metaverse. Amongst other things, his interactive artwork provides a map of adjacent projects—an interface that allows users to parse the lay of the land, and toggle between systems. While taking some inspiration from early game-world graphics, his piece combines both schematic and patchwork visuals, an approach that encapsulates the schizophrenia of metaverse landscapes; their depths and shallowness.
Simon Denny MNZM (1982, Auckland) is an artist based in Berlin. He represented New Zealand at the 56th Venice Biennale and has had large scale exhibitions at museums and galleries internationally including Kunstsammlung NRW, Düsseldorf; MoMA PS1, New York; Serpentine Galleries, London; MONA Tasmania; OCAT Shenzhen; Hammer Museum, Los Angeles. He has also co-curated exhibitions at the Kunstverein Hamburg, the Schinkel Pavillion in Berlin, and the ICA in London. He cofounded the artists mentoring program Berlin Program for Artists BPA// and serves as professor of Time-based Media at the HFBK in Hamburg.