Implant

Workspace Unlimited was founded in 2001 by Thomas Soetens, artist, and Kora Van den Bulcke, architect, and investigates the creative artistic and socio-cultural possibilities of virtual worlds, based on 3-D game technology. Their new work Implant is both an electronically networked interactive virtual world and an installation physically situated in the magnificent Art Nouveau building of Vooruit, a performance venue in the center of Ghent. Once logged into Implant, visitors navigate through two co-existing architectures that slowly begin to reveal themselves: a sumptuous simulation of the real Vooruit, a large complex maze of theater spaces, cafes, meeting rooms, and offices which can be traversed in much the same way we move through physical space - walking upstairs, through doors, down corridors, around corners, inside and out. And a hidden hyperlinked architecture that emerges as users interact with the model's various walls and ceilings.