NEW LAND at OASIS Immersion

Alex Le Guillou and the OASIS Immersion team worked together to explore the relationship between reality, perception, and the natural world.

In Summer 2021, the OASIS Immersion team contacted Visual Artist Alex Le Guillou to participate in their new project, RECHARGER/Unwind. For this cycle of exhibition, they were looking for works which evoke wellbeing and relaxation. Having taken interest in Le Guillou’s approach to nature on previous works Ingenuous and Woods Walk, OASIS proposed an immersive experience in the largest room of their Montreal space.

In Le Guillou’s words, “for several years, I have been experimenting with the representation of nature. 3D scanners, point clouds, computer vision, and scientific representations have always fascinated me.” He saw this as an opportunity to continue the artistic approach he calls Artificial Visions. Using Lidar capture combinations, he proposed a contemplative experience exploring landscapes imagined by machines.

Earlier in 2021, Le Guillou had begun collaborating with a surveyor to capture natural environments and trees in his area. He experimented a lot technically to properly process and interpret data graphically, exporting many high-resolution sequences from Notch and Unreal Engine and rearranging them in the space to create a visual narrative encouraging the audience to wander.

Because Notch allowed Le Guillou to create preview scenes for the large room, which measured 34 by 15 metres, he could better plan and realise the distribution of his visuals and exchange more efficiently with OASIS. To accompany the visuals, frequent collaborator Jonathan Fitas composed a score. Due to its success, OASIS has reintroduced NEW LAND to the public several times.