Empire features a three-screen animation of a virtual monument running the “course of empire,” inspired by the paintings made by Hudson River School artist Thomas Cole’s series. For the piece, Hart also created a performance featuring the Empire music composer Ella Joyce Buckley as an extension of her world. Empire consisted of a four-screen continuous surround animation of a virtual monument running the “course of empire.” It is inspired by the 1836 paintings of Hudson River School artist Thomas Cole’s series. This piece uses a cenotaph drawn by Étienne-Louis Boullée the 18th-century French visionary architect as its source. It slowly decays and morphs from pink to blue, from sunrise to sunset. Camera motion is a slow zoom, direction z.

Claudia Hart is an artist and associate professor in the Department of Film, Video, New Media, and Animation at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, Chicago, Illinois. Having emerged as part of a generation of 90s intermedia artists examining issues of identity and representation, she was an early adopter of virtual reality.

Here, she has used 3D animation to make media installations and projections. Later, as they were invented, other forms of VR, AR and objects were produced by computer-driven production machines.

The artist explains, “My censored work has been shown internationally in public spaces and on various public platforms. It often references classical art tropes such as the Renaissance odalisque and Hellenistic sculpture.”