QUAD is pleased to present a solo exhibition of new and existing work by the American artist and digital art pioneer Rebecca Allen including a new Virtual Reality (VR) commission that will premiere as part of the exhibition in QUAD Gallery one.

Nearly 30 years ago Allen predicted our futuristic culture, writing in 1989 “…not only will people build highly detailed artificial worlds in the computer, but they will also create complex characters with “human-like” behaviour that will “live” in these artificial environments.  These new worlds will be experienced by the viewer through high resolution displays and the viewer will be able to interact with these synthetic characters.”
At the heart of Allen’s complex artworks are give and take interactions by the viewer when inside the artist’s, responsive, visionary and uncanny Virtual Reality worlds.  There are few other experiences that replicate the embrace of Allen’s unique language; a language half-way between gesture and thought.

The exhibition at QUAD features recent VR artworks ‘Inside’ and ‘Tangle of Mind and Matter’ as well as a selection of works drawn from her astounding career, including the interactive large screen installation ‘Bush Soul (#3)’ and the video ‘Musique Non Stop’ that the artist made for electronic music pioneers Kraftwerk.

Curated by Helen Starr, The Mechatronic Library and Peter Bonnell, Senior Curator, QUAD.

Rebecca Allen Biography
Rebecca Allen is an internationally recognized artist inspired by the aesthetics of motion, the study of perception and behaviour and the potential of advanced technology. Her artwork, which takes the form of virtual and augmented reality art installations, experimental video and large-scale performances, spans nearly four decades and embraces the worlds of fine art, performing arts, pop culture and technology research.

With degrees from Rhode Island School of Design and Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Rebecca moves fluidly between artist studio and research lab, using her research to inform her art. Her early interest in utilizing the computer as an artistic tool led to her pioneering art involving human motion simulation, artificial life algorithms and other generative techniques for art creation. She was founding Chair of the UCLA Department of Design Media Arts and is currently a professor there.

Allen’s work is exhibited internationally and is part of the permanent collection of the Centre Georges Pompidou in Paris and the Whitney Museum and Museum of Modern Art in New York. Previous collaborators include artists such as Kraftwerk, Mark Mothersbaugh (Devo), John Paul Jones (Led Zeppelin), Peter Gabriel, Carter Burwell, Twyla Tharp, Joffrey Ballet, La Fura dels Baus and Nam June Paik.