Alan Dunning

Who is Alan Dunning?

Alan Dunning is a Canadian artist based in Calgary, Alberta.

Since the eighties, he has produced monumental installations accompanied by artist books addressing the mutability of meaning and intertextuality. The late nineties marked a turning point for Dunning when he began in-depth research into immersive environments in virtual reality. "Since 1987, Dunning has been using a computer to gather an impressive bank of images and texts that he then disseminates according to parameters determined randomly. His installations revisit the "all-over" strategy in a conceptual form and often occupy a gallery's entire wall surface. Visitors simultaneously perceive the singularity of the details and the overall effect produced by their display. Yet the excess signifiers do not negate the narrative structure woven between all the elements".

The cycle of installations in The Einstein's Brain Project is a major technological shift for Dunning that, nonetheless, re-examines his past conceptual concerns. In this project, beginning in 1995 with Paul Woodrow and a team of scientists from different fields, Dunning probes the new epistemological models that have developed thanks to technological advances in virtual reality. Currently, Dunning is working on a project with working title, Worlds in Worlds. Dunning plans to put together an immersive environment whose boundaries will be defined by the real dimensions of the room the participant is in. Dunning's interest in an Anatomically Lifelike Biological Interface, which operates via a model reproducing certain bio-anatomical functions, is leading him to pursue research on the properties of ferrofluids, liquid matter that can be altered by an electromagnetic field and modified by biological signals from the human body.