Virtual Reality

The Future Is Immersive 2019

This extraordinary exhibition at the Fashion Institute of Technology demonstrates the interaction of artistic virtual reality and how patients respond to medical treatment while they are experiencing the virtual environment. Tom Christopher along with FIT artists and technicians, using Google Tilt Brush, have created artwork which will be on view in a “fourth dimension.” The…

Interactive Exhibit 2018

A virtual showing of Virtual Reality Paintings at the Conde Nast Building, 42nd at Broadway, NYC. Tom Christopher on hand to engage and explain the process and what you experience viewing.

Mentoring Students in VR 2018

Tom Christopher and recent grads from the Fashion Institute of Technology collaborated on two virtual reality projects building veritable landscapes. The first was recreating an entire city block in the South Bronx. For the second phase a portion of the New York Botanical Gardens, a recreation and reinterpretation of the Enid A. Haupt Conservatory and…

Commissioned by Montefiore Medical Center in partnership with the Fashion Institute of Technology, virtual environments are being created to use as a tool to reduce pain and anxiety. Artist Tom Christopher and FIT alumni draw on location to translate New York City street scenes and Parks into virtual reality using Google Tilt Brush technology. The effect it has on viewers can help reduce anxiety and opioid dependence. It’s a classical approach to groundbreaking technology that creates an immersive experience.

The Bronx

Part one, A Bronx street corner, evolves with time: A portion of a street has grown into a neighborhood. Store fronts and street details have been incrementally improved over time to comprise a multi-tiered, richly detailed environment that is created with every angle to be considered. Every detail both internal and external must be created and experienced. Walk through a taxi, stand in the middle of the chef’s food truck griddle or walk into a waiting jackhammer. Check out the fresh fish for sale and the ice cream man’s treats. Soar into the air and see what a bird sees. It’s all possible in the virtual world.

Click here for 360 degree pan-through, where you can scroll around while viewing the animation.

The Process

It begins by drawing on location to capture details of the scene which will translate into a Virtual Reality environment. The site is sketched from all angles and perspectives giving the artists the building blocks needed when recreating the objects in a three dimensional space using different colors, textures and tools.

For the second project, Tom worked with recent grads from the Fashion Institute of Technology using Google Tilt Brush in his upstate studio to build a virtual recreation of NYBG.

Sponsored by Montefiore Medical Center Fine Arts Program, this is part two of the three part series.

Exhibition: The Future Is Immersive

March 15–April 26

Fashion Institute of Technology presents Virtual Reality Paintings by Tom Christopher and FIT Students.

Commissioned by Montefiore Medical Center as an Opioid Replacement Project.

Check out the Hue article entitled The Virtual Cure

Working with Fashion Institute of Technology Recent Grads:

Times Square

The third phase is shaping up; a reconstruction of Times Square. Initial structures, people and vehicles begin to emerge. A cop on horseback, kids on scooters, taxis flying by. Sure, a little sparcer now, gone are the tourists shoveling falafels down the old pie hole. But the locals are still here. And it’s good.