Life after COVID gave us a new understanding of the digital world order. A big number of artists and curators who used to work with physical art were forced to recreate their practice of global isolation. This way virtual environments brutally invaded our reality.

Researcher Jacquelyn Ford Morie, who studies virtual environments, stated in her 2007 paper that: "The phenomenological discussion and focus on the lives experience leads directly into one of the quintessential qualities of virtual environments (VEs). Because our bodies must be emplaced within the virtual space, VEs constitute a distinctive medium of embodiment"(1). That gives us the understanding that the area so many art professionals were forced in was not a novelty. Due to that, they had to blend into all the research and experience that has been made before them.

Here I would like to highlight two art projects inspired by the COVID pandemic. They demonstrate how artists who work with digital and physical objects can find some common ground during a crisis.

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1 - Morie J.F. Performing in (Virtual) Spaces: Embodiment and Being in Virtual Environments. International Journal of Performance Art and Digital Media. Vol. 3. N 2 & 3. 2007. P. 126.

Andrey Shkarin and Maria Efimova's creative duo work in digital and post-digital aesthetics. Their creative method involves producing most of their art via computer. This demonstrates to us a new generation of art professionals who understand computer and algorithmic aesthetics as an everyday practice, similar to sculpting or painting.

In their series Garden Shkarin and Efimova are working with one of the most interesting themes – the interpretation of the Eden Garden motive, which can be found throughout all art history. E.g.: Kent Goldberg's Telegarden invited its viewers to grow their own Garden of Eden and become an eye of the Omniscence for some moments when they were logging into the software the artist created. That project's aim was to involve as many spectators as possible while exploring the possibilities of the internet through art. Shkarin and Efimova's approach is slightly different: they wanted to produce an intimate atmosphere of a personal monochromatic Eden each can have in their possession. Every floral piece has a human hand in it, which stresses the feeling that the artists demonstrate to us something that they love and cherish so much…

Marina Stakhieva produced an interactive VR performance Turning Point in 2021. It is a very unusual work for the artist due to the fact that she prefers such mediums as photography, graphic art and objects.

The project itself is based on the idea of the quantum transition of the Universe into another reality. By that Stakhieva pulled out Deleuzian body into the virtual space, where she was able to control every element and decide which so-called organ to implant in it.

Digital performance is not a new player in the art world, it has been there for quite a while. E.g.: Eva and Franco Mattes had an ongoing series named Reenactments (2007-2010), where they digitized their bodies and repeated the most striking pieces of live-performance art. This way they moved the viewer a little bit farther from the shock contented they could get during the real-life gallery visit…

What is peculiar about Stakhieva's piece is that the artist creates a safe space to tell her binary-code spectators a very personal story. Of course, we will be able to find similar examples in early digital art, but what we see here is an elegant blend of storytelling and mythmaking that makes her work worth mentioning.

These two pieces demonstrate to us how different artists may find common ground via virtual environments. It gives them an opportunity to think out of the box and experiment with what new techniques may offer them.