A new art installation will be housed at the Cyprus Museum in Nicosia from this Friday, organised by the Department of Antiquities. The Love, Death and Meta, the installation will remain at the museum’s temporary exhibition hall from May 31 to October 31 with a focus on three fundamental existential conditions that have been focal points of human creativity and thought through the ages. The virtual reality work, which is the centrepiece of the installation, was realised with the contribution of ITICA of the CYENS Centre of Excellence.

Antiquities from the department of antiquities’ collections and contemporary artworks by Michalis Charalambous co-inhabit a timeless and labyrinthine environment, aesthetically accessible to young generations. Clay, metal, stone, glazes, prints, 3D printing materials and algorithmic entities are combined in this hybrid universe where love and death represent successive transitions in the immersive journey of the (META)human toward the virtual realms, beyond reality.

This virtual METAuniverse provides space for reassessment and critical reflection. Is it possible to transliterate the sense of touch in virtual reality? Is the grief of separation experienced in the METAverse? Can fragrance be encoded in digital flowers? How do relations with others, with our surroundings and with all the other elements that signify our existence, emerge and develop within this virtual realm? Does intimacy emanate in a virtual reality space? Are our avatars capable of falling in love and dying in a context that cancels the concepts of decay and mortality? Here, visitors are called to wander and renegotiate the essence of the experiences that define us, in a rapidly shifting reality.

Love, Death and Meta

Art installation. May 31-October 31. Cyprus Museum, Nicosia. Tuesday−Friday: 10am−6pm. Saturday: 10am−5pm. Sunday: 10am−1pm. Tel: 22-865854