Sky Goodman

“Summer Solstice on the Island” is a place in another world but born from somewhere familiar. The trees are made of code and video feedback and the surrounding sea is made from analog glitches and distorted signals. The island is teeming with life and fauna, the sun is low but has not set. It is the longest day of the year on the island. It is hard to tell if it is the sun or the moon that hangs in the sky. This work was hand sculpted in virtual reality and rendered in Blender. Code made with Hydra and video feedback made with various hardware mixers is mapped onto the objects in this world. Glitch Art can be Romantic, especially video feedback which mimics so many organic forms found in nature. From using code and hardware in unexpected ways, beautiful patterns and colors emerge in a painterly fashion.

From the limitations of the system, comes infinite patterns.

To get lost in glitches is to get lost in nature and realize you are already home.

Sky Goodman is a multimedia artist, poet, and educator living in Chicago, IL. Sky creates dream-scapes with virtual reality, code, and 3D software. Their work revolves around the use of emergent and obsolete technology, which allows them to create a unique and magical aesthetic. By merging tech from different eras, Sky is able to create a visual language that speaks to the alchemic nature of joining hardware and software. Their practice draws inspiration from landscape painters, Romantic poetry, and the wisdom and peace found in nature. However, it also has a speculative and science fiction undertone that contains allusions and easter eggs while also offering new worlds for the viewer to enter. This fusion of past and future, science and art, creates a kind of techno-romance that is both otherworldly and grounded in reality. Using video feedback and virtual reality, Sky’s work creates a living painting that invites the viewer to either step inside it or view it from a distance.

-Dina Chang