Lucy Boyd-Wilson

I am an experiential artist living in San Diego: a programmer, a technologist, a digital artist. My mediums include animation and various interactive and immersive technologies such as virtual and augmented reality.

But it is the gentle flows and processes of natural environments that inspire me to create. I am always in wonder for our vibrant living world and express what I love: its sensitivities, the ebbs and flows, all that ripples and flutters and flocks.

I create “Worlds in Motion” and place the viewer within, surrounded, enveloped. Our landscapes and seas and skies are all in motion. Even slow motion. I want to evoke that feeling of being suspended in awe… in love of our lands.

The minimum we can do for our lands is to notice. To notice and love the subtlety and complexity of the natural world that surrounds us… the world that we belong to.

Mediums

As well as animation, my mediums include interactive and immersive technologies. Interactivity and immersion are important elements of my art. Interactivity is how we connect to our environment. I want to reach out and touch the world.

I create Virtual Reality (VR) experiences for its profound first-person immersion.

Augmented Reality (AR) is another interesting technology for displaying animated art. AR allows users to view animations on their mobile devices and view them in their immediate physical location. AR is a fun and playful way for people to interact with art and engages audiences of all generations.

I also create immersive experiences using camera-based tracking devices and projected visuals. This type of immersion allows viewers to explore my art without needing any gear: No controllers, no headset, no instructions needed.

Inspiration

As a child I ran about in the fields and woods of our home in rural Surrey, England. I clambered around the roots and branches of trees and squeezed through hedges. I’d follow my cat through cat-sized tunnels in thickets and discovered her places, enclosed in the centers of dense bushes. Secret places that only I and all the other small creatures knew about. It was a tactile world. Everything was in motion and so was I.

This was how I began. And this is what I seek to express: a sense of belonging in our natural world, a world that is vibrant, complex, chaotic, resilient.

I create environments of motion. And my question is always: What does it feel like?

Professional Background

I studied Mathematics and Computer Science at McGill University in Montreal and enjoyed a career both as a software developer creating animation tools for the film industry, and then as a video-game developer.