Ephemere is a work by Char Davies in virtual reality,integrating real-time 3-D computer graphics, 3-D localised sound and user interaction based on breath and balance.

Her background in painting is evident as her virtual world has beautiful play of light, transparencies, and blurring forms. She draws inspiration from nature, and this immersive work consists of several strata :
The path of the user within this above world is determined by her vertical position, proximity, slowness of movement, and steadiness/ duration of gaze, as well as the passage of time: for example, in the earth, seeds sprout when gazed upon for any extended length of time, rewarding patient observation with germination, inviting entry into the luminous interior space of their bloom.
After fifteen minutes of immersion, the experience slowly draws to a close, its endings dependent on the participant’s location, as the landscape’s autumnal leaves, the earth’s roots and rocks, the body’s bones, give way to drifting ashes, embers and dust. No journey through Ephémère is the same.

I am inspired by this work because it is rare to see technological pieces that satisfy on the aesthetic level too. As a painter myself, I appreciate the beauty this artist has created using 3D software. And as always, the artist's beliefs always add or take away from the work. Here are some thoughts from this artist:

• For me the all-enveloping, immersive aspect of Virtual Reality (VR), which I believe is only possible with a head-mounted display at this point, is key. I'm not interested in the technology per se, but in the kind of spatial perceptual experience it gives access to.
• Another characteristic of my work is the semi- transparency of the visuals, whereby everything is soft and luminous, dissolving the culturally learned, habitually perceived boundaries between subject and object, inside and out.
• I do not believe in the techno-utopian view of VR, of cyberspace. The technology associated with this medium is not neutral. It has come out of the military/ scientific/ Western/ industrial/ patriarchal paradigm. And so by default, the technology not only reflects but reinforces dominant values, unless deliberately subverted by the artist. I do not welcome a technologically-engulfing, disembodied, cyborgian future. I don't believe, as some in the field do, that nature is an outmoded metaphor and that the sooner we can recreate ourselves through silicon and genetic engineering, the better off we'll be - and when we have fused our brains with our machines we can leave this spoiled planet for virgin territory elsewhere. This is a testosterone dream. I want no part of it, and I guess that's where my female sensibility comes in. In my work, I'm attempting to reaffirm the role of the subjectively-lived body. Rather than deny our embodied mortality and our material embeddedness in nature, I seek, somewhat paradoxically through a highly technologicalized art form, to return people to their bodies and to the earth by using VR to refresh their own perceptions of an embodied being-in-the-world, to return them to a perceptual wonder at being here.