MOKA Virtual Reality Tour

Mat Bevel Company’s president Ned Schaper created the Museum Of Kinetic Art (MOKA) over the last thirty years. The collection includes nearly one hundred moving sculptures all made from thousands of recycled items. The museum is a popular spectacle. During a 2-month solo retrospective at the Tucson Museum of Art in 2014, MOKA broke all attendance records for the August-September time period.

Now through an Arizona Commission on the Arts research and development grant, Schaper is developing MOKA into a virtual reality tour that can be enjoyed by people around the globe.

The tour will be produced at Mat Bevel Company’s Tucson studio using the very popular virtual reality technology to open up a whole new experience for viewers. The technology also has the potential to be highly interactive in the future, allowing viewers to choose their own path.

Approximately 5 minutes from start to finish, the tour will allow viewers to feel as if they are inside the machines and get a close look at many of the mechanized characters in 360 degrees.

The MOKA virtual reality tour will capture the wonderful movements, sounds and colors of all the machines. Audio will be recorded separately with microphones in sculptured areas to control the audio direction.

Students and teachers in greater Tucson will be the first to see the MOKA Virtual Reality Tour. Schaper will share the tour in schools and answer students’ questions.

With many years experience shooting and editing video, the virtual reality technology represents a major step forward for Schaper’s art. The project will substantially expand his knowledge of how to use virtual reality technology, how to move the camera in new ways and how to capture localized sound.

For More Information Contact: Paula Schaper, Mat Bevel Company, 520-604-6273, pschaper@matbevelcompany.org, www.matbevelcompany.org.