• Las Vegas,  Miami

    Alter Your Reality – Art Meets Virtual Reality in a Never Before Seen Experience

    Extremely excited for this event in Art Basel Miami this year! Lucky to see 5 world class artists push the boundaries of imagination with technology. Proud of my husband for being the Executive Producer on this HUGE project. Enjoy!

    Five influential artists interpret the Vegas experience in Virtual Reality.

    For the first time ever, you will see the fantasy of Vegas in a 360 art immersion.

    What’s that like?  It’s just like Vegas…an alternate reality.

    To find out how Vegas can alter your reality, check out our exhibit during Miami Art Week:

    Adhemas

    Adhemas Batista

     

    Beeple

    Beeple

     

    Fafi

    Fafi

     

    INSA

    INSA

    Sn

    Signalnoise

    ADHEMAS BATISTA * BEEPLE * FAFI * INSA * SIGNALNOISE

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    ADHEMAS BATISTA

    Born in Brazil, Adhemas Batista’s career as a self-educated designer and digital artist began in 1996. Experienced in both digital and traditional advertising, his work with Havaianas gained worldwide exposure and prompted his 2006 move to Los Angeles, where he happily resides with his wife and four children.

    Batista’s distinctive visual style – marked with bold, vibrant colors and organic, swirly forms – caught the attention of numerous influential brands and resulted in collaborations with Absolut, Adobe, Adidas, Coca-Cola, Doritos, Gatorade, National Geographic, Speedo, PepsiCo, UNICEF and now – Las Vegas.

    His attention to detail and craft ultimately earned him three Golden Statues in the London International Advertising Festival, The One Show’s prestigious Gold Pencil and a nomination for an Emmy Award. Recognized by The Cannes Festival of Advertising in 2003 as the Brazilian Young Creative, he has since received nine festival Lions, including: three Golden Lions as well as a Grand Prix for the Good honoring his work in “UNICEF Unfairly Tales,” a campaign about the Syrian refugee crisis.

    In addition, Microsoft’s Windows 7 and 8 operating systems featured his work and the UK’s Computer Arts Magazine elected his Coca-Cola piece as the “Design of the Decade 00-09.”

    Adhemas believes everyone is made of energy – a light source that can shine strong and affect everyone around it, change behaviors, motivate people and generate creativity.

    ADHEMAS BATISTA INSPIRED BY:
    -Caesars Palace
    -Bazaar Meat by José Andrés at SLS Hotel Las Vegas
    -Fremont Street Experience in Downtown Las Vegas
    -The Beatles™ LOVE by Cirque du Soleil® at The Mirage

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    BEEPLE

    Mike Winkelmann, better known as Beeple, is a graphic designer from Charleston, South Carolina who works across a number of digital mediums. His recent work includes short films, concert visuals, album artwork, and VR/AR concept work.

    Beeple has done visuals for superstar entertainers, including: Justin Bieber, One Direction, Eminem, Nicki Minaj, Wiz Khalifa, Zedd, along with a number of Las Vegas resident DJs including: deadmau5, Avicii and more. He has also released hundreds of Creative Commons VJ clips that are used extensively by VJs all over the world. In addition, he has recently completed over ten years of “everydays” a project where pictures are all taken from start to finish every day. The project has inspired hundreds of other artists to start their own everydays projects.

    BEEPLE INSPIRED BY:

    -ARIA Resort & Casino
    -High Roller at The LINQ Promenade
    -KÀ™ Cirque du Soleil® at MGM Grand Hotel and Casino
    -SlotZilla Zip Line at Fremont Street Experience
    -MR CHOW Las Vegas at Caesars Palace

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    FAFI

    Born and raised in Toulouse, France, Fafi’s strong presence in the graffiti and fine arts scene was first witnessed on her hometown walls in 1994. Her sexy, funny and sometimes aggressive girl characters made the whole world take notice. By exploring femininity through stereotypes and using it to her advantage, she drew enormous attention and thus started to travel the world with thousands of Fafinettes, her iconic characters, in her brushes and paint cans.

    Fafi has previously worked with Sony to design a six-character toy set for the Time Capsules collection, an almost natural move for her three-dimensional measures. Other successful figurines would follow, as well as numerous expositions and collaborations with Colette, Adidas, LeSportSac, Coca-Cola and countless press stories in the most prestigious magazines (i.e. Vogue, Elle, The Face, XLR8R, Yen etc.).

    Prior to her work on the Vegas: Alter Your Reality campaign, Fafi had created wall-to-wall murals on prominent buildings for the Life is Beautiful music festival that takes place annually in downtown Las Vegas.

    FAFI INSPIRED BY:

    -SLS Hotel Las Vegas
    -SkyJump at Stratosphere Casino, Hotel & Tower
    -Le Rêve – The Dream at Wynn Las Vegas
    -The Neon Museum in Downtown Las Vegas

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    INSA

    INSA has grown from graffiti writer to accomplished artist. Using concepts as ambitious as filming from space to produce seconds worth of looping-animated artwork, he has proved himself truly unique in vision and accomplishment. In the process, he has amassed tens of millions of views online for his stunning video projects.

    Originally famous for his ubiquitous ‘Graffiti Fetish’ artwork that focused on issues of modern aspirations, his visual motifs confront the fetishisation of products in modern society and the commodification of success and ambition. Now known for his mind-bending ‘GIF-ITI’ work, which is underpinned by the theme of online versus offline life, the artist continues his interest in confounding concepts of time and space, the ways in which we process and consume and the transience of both art and object.

    Prior to his work with Vegas: Alter Your Reality, INSA worked with brands including Nike and Sony.

    INSA INSPIRED BY:

    -Vdara Hotel & Spa
    -Wind Dancer Grand Canyon Helicopter Tour by Maverick Helicopters
    -Andrea’s at Encore Las Vegas
    -Big Rig Jig and Toured Airstream Park with
    -Tony Hsieh with the Downtown Project & Zappos
    -Akhob in Louis Vuitton at The Shops at Crystals

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    SIGNALNOISE

    James White, also known as Signalnoise, was born in 1977 and calls Dartmouth, Nova Scotia, Canada home. His parents were never able to keep typewriter paper in the house as White would steal it for drawings as early as the age of four. Upon graduation of high school, he attended a graphic design course in his hometown where he was introduced to Photoshop and Illustrator; tools he still uses today. His professional design career began in 1998 designing websites and print campaigns.

    White never stopped creating and working on his own projects that took up evenings and weekends, eventually resulting in the creation of the Signalnoise Studio. His personal projects gained recognition in the industry and led him to working with Toyota, Universal Music, Nike, MTV, Google, Wired, and now – Las Vegas.

    Today, his focus is on various neon-infused art projects, creating some pieces to compliment his childhood in the 1980s. He also spends a lot of time on the road speaking at various design conventions and events around the world.

    Before embarking on the Vegas: Alter Your Reality project, White had never been to Las Vegas before. His artwork reflects a unique interpretation of Las Vegas through the eyes of a first-time visitor.

    SIGNALNOISE INSPIRED BY:

    -The Venetian Hotel Resort & Casino
    -Beauty & Essex at The Cosmopolitan of Las Vegas
    -The Neon Museum in Downtown Las Vegas
    -Red Rock Canyon Las Vegas
    -Las Vegas Strip Helicopter Tour by Maverick Helicopters

  • New York,  Technology

    Daydream View: Initial Impressions


    The popularity of Virtual Reality cannot be avoided anymore. What was once a commodity for developers, is now easily accessible in any home. Its no surprise that Google is now venturing into Virtual Reality.

    The Daydream View comes in three different colors, for the price of $79 (at the time of this review, the actual price has gone down) In comparison to many other Virtual Reality Headsets out there, its a steal. This is a basic, entry level Virtual Reality headset that allows users to get a taste of it, powered by similar services that you would expect Google to have. The only offside to it, is that its very limited to the Google Pixel phones.

    The look and feel of the Daydream View is great. Its covered in a nice fabric, so it feels nice, and the headset alone is comfortable to be worn for a long period of time. In comparison to other headsets, (Gear VR, Playstation VR), it doesn’t feel like a heavy piece of plastic and it covers your peripherals so it feels as if you are truly immersed in what you are seeing.

    Set up is rather simple and doesn’t take too long to get it running. You need to have Bluetooth enabled to power the VR. During the software setup, you’ll learn how to use the remote. While at first glance the remote may seem to be detrimental to the whole immersive experience, it becomes more clear as the tutorial progresses, why the remote is so important. There are no button options on the Daydream View; everything is done manually on the remote. For example, the buttons help align your center, and can also be used to head to the Home screen.

    The difference of the layout and idea of Daydream, feels like something out of a kids movie. With very cel-shaded graphics and pixelated art, its easy to be awed by what you are looking at.

    If you are part of the Android/Google Ecosystem, you’re going to love it. The option of playing purchased movies from Google Movies on the VR is a beautiful experience. The quality is great. You also have various other apps that allow for a movie like experience in Virutal Reality.

    A few issues with the Daydream View is that while there is plenty of content, the majority of it is just for viewing purposes and not much else. The quality of content that is presented was a bit lackluster. I opened up a Youtube VR video of Star Wars, but it didn’t feel immersive, particularly because the graphics were not high quality. The other issue is the mono-speaker that detriments the true immersion. Don’t expect to run the Daydream View VR for a long time. Within 30min of playing around with Virtual Reality, I saw a significant decrease in battery life on it. (35% decrease)

    Until then, I’ll still play around more and give more of a concrete review of the Daydream View.