Covid-19 and Immersive Creatives Three Months In, #2
An interview with Nancy Lee, Vancouver, Canada
As a follow-up to “Impact of Covid-19 on Immersive Creatives,” I’ve continued to talk to artists about their pandemic experiences.
See other discussions with Raqi Syed & Areito Echevarria, Diego Galfassi, and Stephanie Dinkins.
Nancy Lee is a DJ and immersive, performance-based artist in Vancouver B.C. Before the pandemic, Lee had been traveling frequently for gigs. In some ways, her life leading up to the quarantine was unsustainable and the restrictions became a source of relief:
“I go out maybe 4 times a week… I was feeling burned out ” Lee says.
Lee, as a Canadian citizen, is eligible for the Canadian Emergency Relief Fund, which sends individuals $2,000 a month during the pandemic. Artists can make up to $1,000 and still receive the CERF.
Lee has been working on a performance art installation for the Richmond Art Gallery with her collaborator, Kiran Bhumber. The exhibition, called Union, was to open in August, featuring an immersive transmedia VR gallery experience.
The pandemic has impacted the creative development of Union, as well as how they are planning to exhibit the final project:
“Our story is around an airpocalypse in the year 3000,” she explains. “It’s so weird because it feels like we are actually living through our story, where people are only linked in through these cyber worlds, people do not have human interactions.
Lee and Bhumber are rethinking how to exhibit Union. Their story world was designed to be a VR installation with a performance art component, but as Covid-19 has evolved, They began to question the viability of VR. Given the high cost of VR production and the potential for public fear around VR headsets, they decided to redirect their resources into web-based AR.
Lee and Bhumber are also considering mobile XR using AR kits for Android and iOS so that audiences can access the sculptural element of their exhibition in their own homes. They are drawn to a web-based exhibition because it is simple and accessible to a large audience and doesn’t require downloading an app. There will also be a live performance component separate entirely from the URL version.
During social distancing, Nancy and Kiran have collaborated via Notion and FaceTime. The physical distance has affected their writing in positive ways. Because they can’t meet up or get into the studio, the technical work is on hold:
“Sometimes you are spending 80% of your energy just troubleshooting the tech, and only 20% of it doing the artistic development,” she says.“I feel like this Covid-19 situation has given us room to focus conceptually.”
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