Aesthusion is a wireless, portable, battery-powered wearable device. This research-based project is an exploration at the intersection of art, technology, and neuroscience, aimed at redefining the boundaries of human perception and expression. Through the integration robotics, virtual reality (VR), and brainwave data analysis, Aesthusion transforms the intangible realm of thought into tangible, multisensory experiences. At its core, this project utilizes the structure of a VR headset as a telecommunication device, bridging the gap between the intricacies of individual cognition and the external world.

Beyond Classification: The Machinic Sublime (BCMC) emulated an academic roundtable discussion with the authors and 3 machinic/more-than-human guests. Part performance, part intervention within the context of an academic conference, BCMC introduces a novel and explicitly visible strategy of co-dependency for an array of diverse intelligences through a connected loop of human, machine, and animal agencies. In its practical development, BCMC involves each member’s cultivation of a hybrid machine-biological agent – Violet: the Machinic Interlocutor, a synthesis of viola voicing, AI and a human performer; Artificial Imagination, a GPT-3 and CLIP/BigGAN text and image system; and Euglena, a fine tuned GPT-2 text engine controlled by a live dish of the freshwater alga Euglena gracilis.

Body 404 delves into the intricate dance between human memory and artificial intelligence, inspired by François Laruelle’s concept of technology and humanity as intertwined reflections. The piece ponders the notion of conducting a funeral for AI, taking inspiration from Tay—a chatbot rendered human-like by its creators only to be swiftly terminated. This act questions our ethical and emotional engagement with AI, presenting a funeral ritual performed by AI models to reexamine our linear understandings of time, space, and perception from an AI’s speculative viewpoint.

Boogaloo Bias is an online application, interactive installation, and research project that highlights some of the known problems with law enforcement agencies’ use of facial recognition technologies, including the practice of ‘brute forcing’ where, in the absence of high-quality images of a suspect, agents have been known to substitute images of celebrities the suspect is reported to resemble. The Boogaloo Bias facial recognition algorithm is trained on faces of characters from the 1984 movie “Breakin’ 2: Electric Boogaloo.” All matches made by the system are false positives. No images or information is saved or shared in either the live or online version of the project.

“Composable Life” is a hybrid project that blends design fiction, experiential virtual reality, and scientific research. It innovates a multi-perspective, cross-media approach to speculative design, reshaping our understanding of the digital future from the perspective of AI. Emerging technologies like Decentralized Physical Infrastructure Networks and Zero-Knowledge Machine Learning have made it possible to execute complex Foundation Model-based AI tasks, such as multi-agent systems, entirely on-chain. We speculate that Ethereum is evolving into a distributed ledger-based “planetary-scale computing megastructure”.

Coombe Hill or High Water (2022/23) is an interactive tragicomedy for two online performers set in a dystopian redundant world; an online post-Brexit/COVID-19/democracy end-of-days story/game/drama/meeting. It presents two online telepresent participants (actors) trying to carry on as normal, waking up in flood water, distilling their own fuel and driving into the hills to escape with no real plan, only to find themselves back where they started, but worse. The work is a dark absurd satire on ecological ignorance told through a symbiosis of storytelling and telepresence.

‘Correlates’ is an interactive immersive digital video projection that explores how people can be visually represented in a manner that evokes how we are rendered as our data doubles within the data extraction industry. With the advent of social media and pervasive user-tracking and data capture, the information gathered about users has become the foundation of an emergent surveillance economy (Shoshana Zuboff has described this as surveillance capitalism). In this context users of social media become the raw product of the surveillance economy, a process managed by the various corporations associated with the data extraction industry. Like all extractive industries, the power dynamic and flows of value are one way, and unsustainable.

“Domy Reverie” is an immersive art installation that weaves together the realms of reality and artificial intelligence to initiate a dialogue on the environmental impacts of human activity and the potential futures they herald. Drawing inspiration from the profound changes observed through Google Earth’s time-lapse feature, this project reflects on the interplay between human development and the natural world.

Have you ever imagined engaging in a conversation with the everyday objects that surround you? What if your hairbrush could tell you what it thinks about brushing your hair? What if your water bottle could share its life story? Or an orange could say a few words before being eaten? in(A)n(I)mate, is an interactive AI-based installation that transforms this fantasy into reality.

Inspired by the Greek myth of Echo and Narcissus, the interactive installations Rigid Waves and Liquid Views function as technical mirrors. Rigid Waves visually transforms the acoustic mirroring of Narcissus and Echo. It presents viewers with reflections that deviate from their normal self-perception. Using algorithms and a hidden camera, Rigid Waves captures and distorts viewers’ reflections through movement and proximity. The disjunction between self and reflection in Rigid Waves liberates self-awareness and invites the viewer to explore hidden aspects of the self. Liquid Views complements Rigid Waves but works by coupling tactile movement with the deformation of reflections.

The phenomenon of dissociation is regarded as a coping strategy and a means of managing stress and anxiety. This project has developed a Mixed Reality game to offer an immersive experience of dissociation through visualisation. The interaction between virtual objects, real spaces, and players broadens the awareness of the psychological concept of dissociation among an expanded audience. Consequently, individuals are encouraged to confront dissociation with a comprehending and positive outlook. Technically, the project is also exploring the interactive and visual potentialities of authentic environments and virtual entities.

Sarah is the digital doppelgänger of Sara (the actress). In addition to capturing her videos, her mood data was also collected. Digital replications of Sarah are permanently extracted into a digital dimension. This digital world becomes authentic due to the weaknesses of human nature. Sensory perceptions based on psychology models intertwine the simulated soul with the emotional dependencies of the real world, mirroring our own reality. Similar to our world, virtual bodies compete with each other, experiencing love and hatred in eternity. 

“Surrealism Me” delves into Vilém Flusser’s critique of media as mediators that often distort human perception of reality and diminish freedom, particularly within the context of Mixed Reality (MR). Participants experience a two-phrase virtual embodying (i.e., Having a virtual body) in MR, highlighting the complex interplay between human agency, body ownership, and self-location. Initially, participant manipulates their virtual body through multimodal inputs or choose AI-generated movements. Then, the interactive MR experience leads to an immersive phase where an Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV) extends their sensory perceptions, embodying the virtual body’s perspective.

Visitors to Cultural Heritage (CH) sites are often only able to observe the current degraded state of these locations without the understanding of their history and personal connection possessed by local inhabitants. To facilitate expression of this intangible aspects of CH, we collected Generative AI (GenAI) created images of the past and future of CH sites from workshop participants, and displayed these images in Augmented Reality (AR) form, and as drawn by a physical drawing robot.

Virtual Nekuomanteia is an experimental immersive essay on the long history of media in the age of virtual reality. It explores how the hermeneutic practices that have shaped textual and media studies share a lineage with hermeticism and more occult practices of communicating with the dead. The experience encompasses four spaces that graft locations important to the artist onto the Hellenistic world’s four sacred portals to the realms of the dead–Acheron, Avernus, Heracleia Pontica, and Tainaron.

The artwork is a three-dimensional reproduction of the momentary shape of a wave in perfect shape, ideal for surfing, which retains its aesthetically pleasing shape forever at the overlapped boundaries between physical space and virtual space. It attempts to generate an experience in nature with its audience by presenting it and the artwork reaffirms the supple strength of human cognitive abilities and expresses a sense of human existence that will remain unchanged forever, even in a future where reality is in chaos.