COVID-19
I’m no gamer, in fact I try to avoid engaging with the world through a screen as much as possible. How’s that going for me? Not so well lately. So I may be an especially grumpy explorer of “Jurassic Warp,” KT Duffy and María Luisa Sanín Peña’s series of interconnected virtual reality rooms. Originally meant for exhibition at Ground Level Platform, an artist-run space in Chicago’s Pilsen neighborhood, Duffy moved the project online when the gallery closed due to pandemic and immigration troubles. Navigation of “Jurassic Warp” can be tricky for a person not great with hand-eye coordination (me again!), and the worlds on offer easily slip from trippy to nightmarish and back again. Guest appearances by the No-Internet T-Rex, floating windows, and a random CAD drawing are enough to make a person wonder if she’s accidentally wandered into a digital no-man’s land. Indeed, one of the worlds is constituted by images of a real no man’s land: a doctor’s waiting room, multiplied and layered on itself dozens of times. Hard to say if those are better or worse places to kill time than any other these days. At least there’s no chance of contagion.
—Lori Waxman 2020-10-08 2:23 PM