Video Description:
Quantum Dots & Luna Moths: A Video Collage (Virginia L. Montgomery, 2024) is a surreal, experimental art-film created onsite at Korgel Labs, a material research division at the University of Texas at Austin, that explores the potential of quantum dots. This art-film depicts the new, pristine Korgel Labs populated by the artist and a native Texas luna moth who has emerged inside the lab. The presence of the luna moth inside the lab symbolizes hope and discovery. The film features repeating circle-shaped imagery, like spheres and circles, shared between the moth and the lab. Imagery of quantum dots, equipment holes, and luna moth eye-spots interplay as a surrealist dreamworld emerges through art and science. The film's lush soundscape of foley sounds, Texas nature recordings, and ambient humms from Korgel Lab flows cocoons the film in thoughtful ambience. Quantum Dots & Luna Moths: A Video Collage was created by the artist Virginia L. Montgomery with support from MRSEC's art residency program and Korgel Labs. 

Artist Bio

Virginia L. Montgomery (VLM) is a multimedia artist and naturalist working in video, sound, sculpture, and entomology. VLM received her MFA at Yale University and her BFA at The University of Texas at Austin. Her surrealist artworks conjure dreamscapes that unite elements from mysticism, science and her own lived experience as a neurodivergent individual. Her artistic efforts are characterized by material experimentation, somatic sensitivities, and her unusual studio practice of hand-raising the luna moths and butterflies seen in her videos. Her artwork symbolically explores the uncanny presence of the circle, an omnipresent form that appears in nature everywhere from quantum dots to the eye-spots on luna moth wings. VLM has had solo presentations of her artwork with The Tate Modern (United Kingdom), New Museum (NY), Times Square Arts (NY), Museum Folkwang (Germany), Wright Lab at Yale University (CT), Women & Their Work (TX), The Lawndale Art Center (TX), False Flag (NY), and Hesse Flatow (NY). She has exhibited in group exhibitions at institutions including SculptureCenter (NY), La Panacée-MoCo (France), The Hessel Museum (NY), The Banff Centre (Canada), Socrates Sculpture Park (NY), The Blanton Museum (TX), The Contemporary Austin (TX) and Kunsthal Charlottenborg (Denmark), among others.

Image Description: Students with Virginia at her talk back session. 

Image Description: Students at the artist talk back with Virginia presenting about her work.

Image Description: Our 2023/24 Artist in Residence, Virginia L. Montgomery with her mobile on display in the Zero floor of the Engineering Education and Research building at UT Austin.