Virtual Eyes

A project supported by the IOU Creation Centre and a DYCP grant from Arts Council England.

Artist Showcase 2024, IOU Creation Centre, 1 July - 9 August 2024

Slade Research Forum, Slade School of Fine Art, 14 November 2024

Armelle Skatulski, "Virtual Eyes (Left Screen Sequence 1)," 2024. Excerpt from a three channel long form video made using VR technology.

Artist Statement

Virtual Eyes is a meditation on the links between virtual cinematics, attention computing, digital information and natural resources extraction.

The project stems from an interest in how ‘player eye data’ like eye movements or fixations can be collected and mined during VR interactions in so-called attention computing studies to produce behavioural statistics or data visualisation products such as heat maps used in marketing or worker monitoring.

Virtual Eyes uses various interactive heat maps designed for VR and consists of a series of video recordings made using a Virtual Reality engine to explore the virtual gaze and the virtual camera for the (anti)cinematic possibilities that they offer in order to probe a tension between attention and inattention, valuable and valueless ‘data.’

Through three-dimensional collage and cinematic after-images, the project develops Virtual Reality scenes which explore a type of three-dimensional virtual object that is fleeting and that can only be recorded by the virtual camera as an after-image.

Virtual Eyes is a project supported by the IOU Creation Centre and a Develop Your Creative Practice (DYCP) grant from Arts Council England.

Armelle Skatulski, Untitled (VR after-image), still from Virtual Eyes, a three channel long form video made using VR technology, 2024

Armelle Skatulski, "Virtual Eyes (Right Screen Sequence 1)," 2024. Excerpt from a three channel long form video made using VR technology.

3D anatomical models courtesy of: Julia Marilyn Hernandez De Barrientos.

Armelle Skatulski, "Virtual Eyes (Right Screen Sequence 2)," 2024. Excerpt from a three channel long form video made using VR technology.

3D anatomical models courtesy of: Julia Marilyn Hernandez De Barrientos.

Armelle Skatulski, Virtual Eyes, three channel video display at the CultureDale Artist Showcase 2024, IOU Creation Centre. Photo courtesy of Alexander Dobrev/IOU.

CultureDale Artist Showcase 2024 launch, 27 June 2024, IOU Creation Centre.

Photo courtesy of Alexander Dobrev/IOU.

Armelle Skatulski, Untitled (heat map iris), still from Virtual Eyes, a three channel long form video made using a VR engine, 2024.

Armelle Skatulski, Untitled, still from Virtual Eyes, a three channel long form video made using VR technology 2024.

Virtual Eyes is a project supported by the IOU Creation Centre and a Develop Your Creative Practice (DYCP) grant from Arts Council England.