Jacquelyn Morie
- Details
- Category: Art
- Published on Saturday, 07 October 2006 07:00
- Written by Carla Weber
Dr. Jacquelyn Morie, artist, photographer, tech geek, virtual resident, innovative creator of virtual 3D worlds, mother and wife. With a PhD in Immersive Environments Ms. Morie, who started out as a fine artist, currently heads up a team at the Institute for Creative Technologies in the Marina, researching for entertainment, academic and technology firms. One of their clients includes the United States Army.
Dr. Morie’s sweep from assemblages to computer art is bound by a common ideology: creative healing that allows the viewer to be transported through a window. Starting with assemblages of found art in wooden boxes she now works with the rectangular frame of the computer screen. The viewer is thrust into an interactive and virtual ‘mind’ field of characters, places and experiences that are outside the box of every day experiences. In Morie’s early digital work she took a familiar figure, i.e. a photo of a family member or friend and played with the imag amd manipulated it to appear as if it were a layered painting. Or she stretched it just beyond recognition, figures drenched in psychedelic malformations. The colors are vivid, extreme, pungent and have the dubious quality of a painting… but it isn’t a painting and it isn’t a photograph. It takes an artist to think outside the box and Morie is a visionary in our midst.
Presently Morie is building an online virtual space in the 3D world of Second Life. Click here Second Life “is a free online virtual world imagined and created by its Residents. From the moment you enter Second Life, you’ll discover a fast-growing digital world filled with people, entertainment, experiences and opportunity” Morie's space will allow veterans from the Iraqi war to socialize and heal with fellow veterans in private and confidential anonymity. Morie and her team, on the “bleeding edge” of technology and computer art, are building an Iraqi village among other virtual realities. It will be led by an avatar (a computer animated representation of oneself or alter ego) and help vets to address physical, intellectual, emotional and alternative healing.
“Immersive environments seek to experientially transport participants to other places. There, they can interact with realistic and engaging characters. Our leadership in artificial intelligence, virtual worlds, computer animation and graphics is moving us from the realm of science fiction to reality.”