Graduate student exhibits virtual reality project ‘Isla Lacerta’

In the world of “Isla Lacerta,” lizards can data mine and explorers can journey through caves.

Design | Media Arts graduate student Theo Triantafyllidis’ solo exhibition, “Isla Lacerta” will be on display Tuesday and Wednesday in the Experimental Digital Arts room of Broad Art Center. This solo exhibition, incorporating artwork and a virtual reality, is the second part of a series for the eight first-year Design | Media Arts graduate students.

Originally from Greece, Triantafyllidis said he previously studied architecture at the National Technical University of Athens before working as an architect and artist in Beijing.

“I didn’t like the profession and the working conditions,” Triantafyllidis said. “I like doing more personal and creative work which is why I decided to change (fields).”

Triantafyllidis said he was drawn to Design | Media Arts because of its art-driven nature, and his desire to explore digital space and virtual environments. Unlike with his previous architectural work, he said with this program, he now has the freedom to play with immaterial space.

“I’m focusing more on very general qualities of space and how they can be translated in virtual pieces, and also the dialogue between the physical space and the virtual space,” Triantafyllidis said.

Triantafyllidis said he worked on developing the world of “Isla Lacerta” for two months and was initially inspired by his interest in conspiracy theories, dinosaur archeology and virtual exhibitions.

“I hadn’t worked a lot with game environments before, but it was something I really was interested in,” Triantafyllidis said. “I have a background in architecture, so I was able to deal with the 3D modeling of the environment, but it was quite interesting to see how I could make the environment believable in virtual space.”

For his solo exhibition, Triantafyllidis said he integrates a physical component in the form of ceramic pieces as well as an Oculus Rift virtual reality headset that will allow participants to enter a virtual environment.

Once they arrive in the virtual world of “Isla Lacerta,” Triantafyllidis said participants will initially find themselves in an accurate model of the exhibition.

“It’s an exploration game,” Triantafyllidis said. “You start from the gallery itself and you discover some hidden passages that lead to a bigger exhibition inside a secret system of caves.”

Triantafyllidis said the exhibition will have a darker atmosphere, and in the middle of the gallery, there will be a lizard mask that ties into the exhibition’s lizard-based world.

As its name, “Isla Lacerta,” suggests, Triantafyllidis said his exhibition centers on an island of lizards.

“Lacerta means ‘lizard’ in Latin and this whole world that I created is supposed to be a small island in the middle of nowhere where these lizard people live and have their caves,” Triantafyllidis said. “Inside these caves there is a server room, and what the lizards are trying to do is control the Internet and data mine.”

Triantafyllidis said the exhibit will operate in a ritualistic manner with 10 people entering the gallery at a time and then, one by one, immersing themselves into the virtual world with the headset. There will also be a projection in the gallery to reveal the world for those who do not wish to use the headset.

“It seems like a cross between a game and an art piece,” said Neil Mendoza, a first-year Design | Media Arts graduate student and a future solo exhibition artist.

Mendoza said Triantafyllidis spent most of his time constructing art pieces and developing his virtual world by creating the computer game and integrating it into technology like Oculus Rift.

“All of (Triantafyllidis’) work is really fun to see,” said Adam Ferriss, a first-year Design | Media Arts graduate student and last week’s solo exhibition artist. “He’s also just very lighthearted and playful and I think it’ll definitely be a fun exhibit, not a serious one.”

Triantafyllidis said he likes the direction that “Isla Lacerta” went in and might carry on working with this project’s style of virtual exhibition in the future.

“(‘Isla Lacerta’) is an experiment on virtual space and its relation to the actual gallery space,” Triantafyllidis said. “I hope that people can really immerse themselves in this world – (this exhibition) is mostly about the experience of the world.”