#VRArtLive Gallery May 2021
Title: Moksha VR Gallery
Artists: Moksha Arts Collective
World creator: Juan Carlos Gallo aka JcFractal
World curator: Ray Orraca
Platform: VRChat
Curator: wildc4rd
Editor: grrlrighter
This world was toured in VRChat Saturday May 22 @11a PDT Sign up to join us next time on a tour or watch it on Twitch!
About the Moksha VR Gallery
(Commentary by JCFractal)
The Moksha VR Gallery is a virtual space created for the Moksha Arts Collective, that’s been in existence since 2017 in VRChat. The Moksha Arts Collective has its headquarters in Miami but it is composed of visionary artists from all over the world including Alex Grey, Allyson Grey, Mark Henson, Android Jones, Robert Venosa, Marlina Hoffman, Chris Dyer among many others.
There is also a Tilt Brush area with works from The Sabby Life, LUVRWorldWide, Sara Phinn, and JcFractal.
The Moksha gallery has a physical location near Wynwood Miami, a famous area filled with galleries, shops and artist studios. I have been attending the annual gatherings during Art Basel Miami, in which many of the artists from the collective would travel
from all over the world to participate in the festivities.
The VR space is a collaboration between Ray Arraca and me (Juan Carlos Gallo aka JcFractal). I’m a big fan of visionary art, and me and Ray have been friends for years.
Around 2015 Virtual Reality was starting to take off, so we decided that visionary art was a perfect fit for virtual reality. I had been into VR since 2013 in the days of the Oculus DK1 (first development kit) so I began to put together the first versions of the gallery and we would show it during live events on my personal computer around 2015, before the VRChat version. Little by little it began to grow and take shape, finally in 2017 we uploaded it to VRChat so that the entire world could have access to it. The gallery grew as my own skills in Unity development.
Today the gallery is a sprawling space, made up of different levels, with portals that instantly take you to particular artists and “elevators” that fly you from one place to the other like riding a roller coaster. I’ve learned so much during the making of this gallery, how to use lighting properly, how to create interactive elements inside VRChat, how to create mood and atmosphere. One of the elements that instantly impacts you when you enter the gallery is the sense of scale. The gallery is huge, it floats in space, like a giant space station, you can almost get lost in it. This is why I began adding portals to different locations and “elevators” that quickly transport you from one side to the other.
The design style is very industrial, almost brutalist, with a minimalist vibe. In the center there is a 360 video dome with a piece by Android Jones. There are two “Temples” one is
called Temple of The Masters and the other houses the Moksha Symbols, which were commissioned to different artists in the gallery.
In 2020 the gallery was accepted to the Burning Man Multiverse, since Burning Man was cancelled because of the pandemic, so it went virtual for the first time in its history. For 2021, we created a version of the gallery in AltSpace, and we plan to be a part of the Burning Man multiverse again. The gallery is about to be further expanded with more Tilt Brush pieces, artists and even more portals and elevators. It's becoming so large that we will need to include a map so people can better find their way around.
It's been an incredible journey working on this project, it has mirrored my own journey in VR Unity development. It has been a labor of love and an exercise in collaboration with other artists. I’d like to thank Ray Arraca for his incredible vision and dedication to this project, he’s input and support have been essential in making this project happen. It is an honor to be part of the Moksha Arts Collective, bringing visionary art and conscious living to the world in the first VR gallery of its kind.
More info:
Are you a VR artist or a VR gallery creator? If you would like to have your art or gallery featured by VR Art Live! you can apply here.