Char Davies

Char Davies (born 1954) is a Canadian contemporary artist known for creating immersive virtual reality (VR) artworks. A founding director of Softimage, Co, she is considered a world leader in the field of virtual reality and a pioneer of bio-feedback VR. Davies is based in rural Quebec and San Francisco. She transferred to the University of Victoria (UVic) and received the Bachelor of Fine Arts degree in 1978.

In 2005, Davies earned a doctorate from Plymouth University for her PhD dissertation about the "philosophical underpinnings of her own art practice". Her own style developed her own created symbolic language and sense of aesthetics.

Her Interior Body Series (1990–1993) was a collection of 3D still images, exploring the possibilities of how art can be viewed in virtual space. The Interior Body Series was shown internationally and won an Ars Electronica Distinction in 1994. Visual components of the VR space are created not through traditional methods, but rather by algorithms and transparency maps; it is the unique and creative way that Davies combines customized programming that make her work unique. She also stresses that her work also has deep connections to her beginnings as a painter, especially in regards to her sense of color. It was first exhibited in Montreal in 1995 at the Sixth International Symposium on Electronic Art (ISEA). Osmose challenged an "immersant's" (Davies' preferred term for viewer) notions of space and explored the "porous borders between lived experience and virtual experience." Osmose had a Cartesian 3D grid that the immersant would be able to travel through and "visit" twelve different world-spaces based on "metaphorical aspects of nature." The world is generated by an SGI Supercomputer. Ephémère allows the immersant to go inside of objects and see them from the inside-out.

Recognition In 2002, her alma mater the University of Victoria awarded Davies an Honorary Doctorate of Fine Arts for her contributions to the field of media art.