Dreamlands: Immersive Cinema and Art, 1905–2016

Ben Coonley’s Trading Futures (2016) tilts our gaze upward onto the interior of a large cardboard geodesic dome where a 360-degree video is projected. The DIY aesthetic of the dome sits in stark contrast to, yet in perfect sync with, the high-tech space of Coonley’s video, whose complex transitions between 2D and 3D push this new technology to its limit.

In the video, Coonley delivers a lecture on financial trading futures and the technical properties of 3D, adopting different personae as he moves through a series of interior and exterior spaces, floating, dancing, and spinning, released from gravity by the optics of technology and digital space. He uses 3D-animation software to assemble 360-degree live-action footage, cell phone photos, stereoscopic 3D video, and virtually rendered elements, creating a composite moving image that challenges the physical limits of the dome as well as those of our visual perception.