I worry that when it comes to reviewing anything involving tech, I’m building a reputation as a bit of a Luddite. I think NFTs are a morally bankrupt and environmentally catastrophic grift; I think generative AI cannibalises the work of real artists to create soulless simulacrums of the human creative impulse, and I’ve nailed my colours to the mast on that front more than once. But I should be clear that I’m not against technology either informing art or being treated as art in itself, and it’s with an experience like EVOLVER, the 3D film experience from Marshmallow Laser Feast, that the full potential of incorporating technology into a gallery space can be realised.
EVOLVER is an immersive, multi-sensory journey into the branching, pulsating structures of the human body, following the journey of a breath of air into the lungs and the flow of oxygen into blood vessels, organs and limbs. But giving you that dry, anatomical summary doesn’t quite capture how expansive and almost spiritual seeing the human body recontextualised in this way is.
The event consists of three stages, the first of which is a guided meditation that takes place on beanbags. Once you’ve popped on your headphones, you’re treated to a soothing 10-minute monologue about breathing as an act of communion with the natural world, delivered with serene authority by Cate Blanchett (one of many big-name gets for this project, with also boasts Terence Malick as executive producer and Radiohead’s Jonny Greenwood among its music department). The prospect of VR can feel intimidating to newcomers, so preceding it with an exercise in which Galadriel tells you you’re one with the Earth and it’s all going to be ok is a master stroke. Any nerves we had as a group were soothed by the time we stepped into the second section for the main event.
The meat, as it were, of EVOLVER is a 24 minute immersive 3D film - don a VR headset and marvel as you’re enveloped in a 360 degree surround sound rendering of expanding and contracting lungs, arteries, and capillaries, before being enveloped in the pulsing embrace of a breathing cell. Swivelling on our chairs, we were able to observe as the dance of oxygen through our veins took place from above and below. The movement of each breath is rendered in dancing motes of digital light, clustering and flowing like a school of tiny fish as it illuminates the branching, feathered extremities of our anatomy.
The emphasis of EVOLVER is on the universality and interconnectedness of structures. and feeling like a tiny explorer of the body as both landscape and ecosystem communicates that with vivid immediacy. The branching, tentacular structures of our capillaries recall at once tree branches, coral membranes, expanding nebulae; moving from the brain to the structure of the ribs feels like wandering an ancient monument, and the underwater sound design brings to mind communing with some vast marine creature. The tracking data from which the animation is produced might be clinical, but the experience is poetic. It’s also refreshingly well safeguarded - staff are on hand to guide you through each stage and assist you if you experience any distress throughout the showing.
The final chamber provides some context behind the genesis of the project; a video installation explains its roots in clinical observation via MRI scans and Marshmallow Laser Feast’s expansion of the concept into something fluid and experiential. This is accompanied by some gorgeous visual prints that capture the motion of fluid through the lungs and skull, a strikingly dynamic and almost ghostly take on the typically static medical diagram. It’s the perfect capstone to an experience that presents the body as an organism in constant motion and living continuum with its environment, each mutually sustained by the other. VR can often be a gimmicky premise, but EVOLVER is perhaps one of the most effective and artistically justified uses of its capabilities I’ve ever seen - dare I say, a breath of fresh air.
Image credit: Evolver, Oxford, 2024. Photo Sandra Ciampone. Courtesy of the Cultural Programme at Oxford University and Marshmallow Laser Feast. This event is part of the Adventures in Consciousness season of events produced by the Cultural Programme at Oxford University.