Let’s make something that matters together in Virtual Reality!

 

Hi! I am Carrie Fertig, a socially engaged interdisciplinary artist and Mearns and Coastal Healthy Living Network (MCHLN) volunteer. I am thrilled to announce a new project between MCHLN and myself, funded by Creative Scotland.

 

Health of the Sublime in the Mearns is a two-year project focusing on the lived experience of wellbeing and the sublime in the natural world, and the direct threat to that lived experience posed by climate change. With your artworks in video, sound, writing, and sculpture, we will build an interactive map online, in Virtual Reality, and in real life. The map will have clickable links where your videos, sound recordings, interventions in the landscape, and writing, produce a multi-dimensional deeply personal view of how important our lived experience of the natural world is to our wellbeing and spirit. We have funding for this first year of activity from Creative Scotland. In year two, an overlaying map of additional artworks made by participants will be made focusing on how that lived experience of wellbeing and the sublime is threatened by climate change.

​

Part of this project is a special programme for a smaller number of participants in Virtual Reality.

 

Virtual Reality

 

Alongside video, audio, writing, and art in nature, we will run one cohort of two people to learn creative apps in Virtual Reality. There are special criteria for selected participants:

 

ŸMust be largely housebound

ŸAlready, or willing to become a client of or volunteer with MCHLN

ŸNeed to have computer and internet or willingness to have this provided by MCHLN for duration of cohort

Non-smoker

ŸWillingness to practice regularly. You will be fully supported to take part.

 

Participants in the VR cohort will receive at least 22 private one-on-one tuition sessions. I am high risk and will take great care to keep you safe, potentially meeting you outside a window. You will learn how to build your own immersive experience of the natural world and will be assisted with scans, audio, and video of your specific place of wellbeing to import into your virtual natural world. If you meet the criteria and would like to learn VR and contribute to this project, please email me @ carrie@carriefertig.com or call the Mearns and Coastal Healthy Living Network office on 01561 378 130. Please feel free to email if you have any questions about any aspect of becoming a VR participant, we can set up a phone date to discuss. And just a wee note: I had no VR experience until June 2021. If I can learn the wonders of creating in a boundless immersive environment, you can too. Absolutely no experience needed.