And The Winner Is...

In 2016, I was hanging out at a build-a-thon style art camp in Second Life when I decided to paint a friend for fun. After observing my work, I talked to another artist, Bryn Oh, about the painting. Bryn then showed me a traditional painting she had created depicting her own virtual avatar.

Two artists encountering an idea naturally means an art movement is likely inevitable. But, how do you create traditional fine art about virtual spaces? And how do you get traditional galleries to accept that type of art?

For several years, I dedicated myself to experimenting with how a painting depicting a virtual world would look like. What style should it take? What would the painting have to say? Not all of the work I produced during that time was great, but the point was that new ideas happened and eventually built up to something far better. Eventually, VR entered the picture and I joined VRChat to write and photograph virtual worlds there. I wanted to let my art evolve over time to adapt to this new technology.

By the time 2024 rolled around, other artists were beginning to paint virtual worlds and avatars. Raindance Immersive was handing out awards for well-constructed virtual worlds too. The time felt ripe to advance the conversation.

On August 3rd, 2024, I gave a presentation at Strange Pear Gallery about the history of virtual art. I discussed how artists have been doing everything from building virtual art pieces to machinima to photography to paintings in virtual worlds. Despite this happening for at least three generations now, we've never given this movement a name. I was determined to change that, so I held a poll and asked people to give name suggestions and vote on the best one.

The artists of Strange Pear Gallery compiled a list of 19 possible names. We wanted to come up with suggestions that could seriously be adopted and respected by fine art galleries.

The presentation and discussion are here for anyone curious:

But in all this time, I still hadn't contacted Bryn Oh. I wanted to show her how far this idea had come when I approached her again, so I waited until the poll was active to send her the link. Yesterday, I received a response and we had a conversation.

What Bryn had to show me of her own work shocked me.

Three years ago, Bryn gave her own presentation at York University about the immersivity of virtual spaces and how the composition of digital worlds relate to paintings. She originally called the possible art genre Immersiva and called its participants Immersivists. Her presentation is here:

Today the naming poll closed, and one name won by a landslide. Twenty-eight people voted on this poll. It's like serendipity:

The name of this movement is now called Immersivism.

And now for Q&A!

"What is Immersivism?"

Immersivism is the practice of depicting people, places, and ideas in/of virtual worlds through fine art.

"How do you use Immersivism in a sentence?"

• "This is an Immersivist sculpture."
• "His paintings focus on Immersivism."
• "Artists associated with the Immersivist movement include Oz Pearsall, BabyBonito, and KIGTA."

"What is Immersivism inspired by?"

Immersivism is inspired by Impressionism. Depending on how things go, the two movements might earn closer comparison in the future. Both art movements focus on acts of leisure but are distinct for the time periods in which they were born. They also both are associated with specific techniques in order to depict their work, but not all works adapt those techniques (Impressionism wasn't all quick, nebulous paintings, just like Immersivism isn't all associated with blind contour painting).

"When did Immersivism actually begin?"

This is going to be up for debate. You can either qualify this official post as the date of its formation, or you can go back in time to when the first artist created the first work about a virtual world. An art historian will have this answer.

"What type of art qualifies as Immersivist?"

All fine art that depicts virtual worlds and its users can be considered Immersivist: photography, sculpture, paintings, drawings, etc. These works can also be digital as well as physical. Virtual worlds themselves can be considered Immersivist too.

"What if I really, really want this movement to be called something else?"

Campaign for it. Maybe over time the name will change! It's safe to say, though, that I'm not holding another poll again. If you were to campaign to change everyone's minds, I would simply move all of my art experiments over to the new name. My work doesn't depend on naming this art movement, it depends on my individual skill and ideas--just like any other artist out there!

"I want to create a virtual art movement, but I want to be able to approve who participates in it."

What you're describing is called an art collective. You should absolutely create a collective and make art if you want to! In the long run, though, an art historian can still classify your work as Immersivist if you're creating art about virtual worlds.

"So, what happens now?"

My personal goal during this time was to foster creativity in virtual communities and get people talking about how what they create in virtual worlds is actually fine art. Part of this work was carried out in secrecy, so that it couldn't be ruined before it reached a natural state of completion. Because there are now two presentations and a poll backing up the intention, I consider my main efforts with this work to be complete.

I'm interested now in finishing professional Immersivist paintings, as well as developing my own cross-reality atelier. I would also like to keep writing articles of things I find interesting about virtual culture.

I'm happy Immersivism can thrive on different platforms and in different spaces. It can encompass AR, VR, or older immersive worlds that are accessible by PC or mobile. It's whatever at this point--there's so many of us already making wildly different art in this genre already. From here I will see where it goes, and let the art historians and critics discuss the rest.

See you next time!