Curator Christiana Kazakou in conversation with William T. Ayton, Artist-in-Residence at ASU Meteor Studios

The Interplanetary VR Sustainable Futures was presented at Ars Electronica Festival 2022 ”Welcome to Planet B,” in the context of Altered Realities, LEONARDO OAKLAND/TEMPE GARDEN.

© Photo Credit: William T. Ayton, Interplanetary VR Sustainable Futures

CK. You developed the Interplanetary VR Sustainable Futures project as an Artist-in-Residence at Arizona State University Meteor Studio. Can you elaborate on your collaborations with Meteor Studio and the Interplanetary Initiative?

Meteor Studio gives me an open-ended opportunity to try things out. I get access to equipment and students who can help me work on projects. It’s an ongoing process, and I hope to work on several more projects in the near future. It’s interesting and fairly new for me to work with a team of students from those available at Meteor Studio. I find that teams work best when the roles are well-defined. The students have different skill sets that can really enhance the projects.

CK. In the project, you combine traditional art mediums with new technologies to create a collective discourse featuring the works of 15 artists; what inspired you to collaborate with other artists, and do you believe that this collective effort resonates with the UN SDGs?

Working with other artists’ works forces me to think of methods to put things together in unusual & interesting ways. In this case, I was sort of a curator (though the artworks had already been selected) & also building the actual gallery rooms, which is an odd position to be in. With the Interplanetary project, we created an environment that would hopefully be compatible with a wide range of different artworks. In this case, the SDGs kind of dictated the selection of artworks, which had to somehow fit their parameters (clean air, health, education, etc.). The SDG logo is brightly coloured & makes me think of games like “Twister” with a multi-coloured board, & which gives it a somewhat playful & energetic appearance. This all came together to make the project more visually appealing & engaging. I put the exhibits in glass domes in outer space instead of white cuboid rooms that you might find in a regular gallery to make things more interesting but not too distracting.

CK. The United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) are a recurrent topic these days; how does the project address and educate broader audiences? What are the meanings you are trying to convey?

Answer: With the Interplanetary project, we’re just trying to draw connections between space exploration & ideas & human concepts on Earth, leading to better societies & conditions for all. The hope is that people are drawn in & excited by the interactive 3D VR environment & explore the artworks & watch the videos, and, therefore, are encouraged to consider & think about the concepts contained therein. The “outer space” environment takes people out of their usual surroundings, where they can think differently about new ideas.

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