ENTER THE VERSE | 2021
Describes the transition from the real to the virtual. It is a sketch-like draft of my own metaverse. The sequence ends with a very long zoom-out. As the camera pulls away from the scene, the boundaries of the world become visible. Subsequently, the Unity GUI appears, which is then embedded into the program monitor of Premiere Pro, displayed on the virtual desktop of the Quest 2. Finally, this area is also exited through the Passthrough Guardian.

"Enter The Verse" was the second part of my video work contributed to the exhibition "After the Metaverse." In the first part, various metaverse platforms are systematically compared. The focus was on the portals, the entry points into each world, the landscape aspects, the phenomenon of clipping, and a typology of water.

The exhibition originated at the University of Arts and Design Karlsruhe as part of the DFG Priority Program "The Digital Image" in the project "Adaptive Images: Technology and Aesthetics of Situational Imaging.", where I was working as an research assistant. The metaverse has become synonymous with the integration of physical and digital environments, but assessments and forecasts vary. For some, the metaverse stands in a long media tradition of illusion and fantasy realities; for others, it aspires to become the "next medium" after smartphones and mobile computing. However, in its technical realization, it remains a prototype.

The exhibition "After the Metaverse" addresses the question of whether the metaverse is a reprise of the past, the current present, or merely a promise of the future, through interpretations and artifacts from explorations of hybrid, interactive environments. The phenomenon of the metaverse is approached from the perspective of artistic research by illustrating its concrete manifestations.

Exhibition »After the Metaverse«
Lydia Kähny with Johannes Bauer, Nadja Buttendorf, Teresa Häußler, Ludi Karlucci, Josephine Rais. Grafics: Vincent Becher, Luis Rüttiger