‘Circa 1948’ art project at SFU Surrey for limited time

Digital-art experience takes viewers to a hotel and an alley

The “Circa 1948” 3D digital-art experience will be SFU Surrey until Nov. 13.

The “Circa 1948” 3D digital-art experience will be SFU Surrey until Nov. 13.

SURREY CITY CENTRE — A “groundbreaking and immersive interactive storyworld” has come to SFU Surrey’s main concourse for two weeks.

“Circa 1948” opened at the campus Tuesday (Oct. 27) and will be there until Nov. 13.

Housed inside a square structure, the digital-art experience takes viewers to a hotel and an alley, both in Vancouver circa 1948.

The project was co-created by the National Film Board of Canada’s Digital Studio in Vancouver and internationally acclaimed artist Stan Douglas.

“Circa 1948” makes use of emerging technologies to “offer multiple entry points into an imagined world, created using photorealistic 3D illustrations and based on extensive historical research carried out by Douglas.”

(CLICK HERE TO SEE PROMO VIDEO)

The installation, part of SFU’s 50th-anniversary celebrations, involves a 3D art app for iPad and iPhone, as well as the projection-mapped installation.

“The experimental nature of ‘Circa 1948’ is an attempt to evolve a new visual and narrative language,” reads a post at Sfu.ca.

Featured are “two vibrant communities struggling in a time of unforgiving change: an old hotel in Vancouver’s affluent West Side, squatted by homeless war veterans, (and) the muddy streets of the ethnically diverse Hogan’s Alley in the working-class East Side, populated by racial minorities, gamblers, prostitutes and corrupt police officers.”

The “Circa 1948” experience has been designed as a solo journey of approximately 10 minutes. Admission is free and available on a first come, first serve basis.

Public tours run from noon to 5 p.m. daily until Nov. 13, with the exceptions of Sundays, Mondays and Remembrance Day.

SFU Surrey is located at #250-13450 102nd Ave., Surrey.

Tom.zillich@thenownewspaper.com

Surrey Now