An AI terrarium that stays alive by receiving Instagram likes. A machine designed to mimic the sensation of a human hug. A wearable pregnancy simulator that isolates the womb from gender and sex. Such are three of this time's Adobe Festival Of The Impossible featured interactive art installations — all of which are designed by women immersive artists reimagining the possibilities of AR as an innovative storytelling tool.
All three projects will be showcased at Adobe’s upcoming Festival of the Impossible, which is free and open to the public at Chandran Gallery in San Francisco, CA, this Friday, September 27, through Sunday, September 29. Ahead, we spoke with the artists about each of their projects and the advice they would give to other women artists looking to break into AR and immersive media. The Artist: Lucy McRae, sci-fi artist and body architect The Work: Compression Carpet
Describe your work in a few sentences — what does it look like? What is it about? This artwork requires two people to engage in an activity, involving a lo-fi machine that hugs you. The firmness of hug is manually operated by a stranger (servicer) kneeling beside a body (client) that is sandwiched between blubber-like cushions, lulled to surrender. Fabricated like a frock, appearing as furniture, this unusual world explores concepts of isolation, touch and the future of intimacy. How do interactive and immersive art installations you’ve created help you tell stories in a way you couldn’t do with traditional art? Science and art serve each other when in tandem; the worlds I build tell stories about complex themes — like genetic engineering — in memorable, familiar, and human ways. I believe that telling stories via film, installation, and sculpture are tools to hover the imagination, change behavior, and deliver important messages. What advice would you give to women creators who want to break into immersive art, or break out of the boundaries of traditional art? I strongly encourage women to see obstacles as signs as to where you want to go and to learn to design from fear. Any woman artist who is comfortable won’t give themselves the opportunity or bandwidth to disrupt, pioneer and tap into their internal forces. My process is very instinctive, listening to very, very subtle feelings and making art from this place. It’s hard and abstract to work from and is generally against what people are telling me to do. I believe this is a way to move from something you know, to the unknown.
We operate with a startup mentality at my studio — we “move fast and break things,” prototyping and learning from failure. This is the antithesis to perfectionism, which is a big challenge, but hugely rewarding. The fastest way to see if something works is to put work out there and see how to improve it going forward. This kind of attitude can fuel and nurture change. Photo Credit: Scottie CameronThe Artist: Camila Magrane, multimedia artist The Work: Osma
Describe your work in a few sentences — what does it look like? What is it about? Osma is an artificial intelligence with a terrarium as a body — an interactive sculpture that explores internet identity and the psychological dependence of a social network. Osma interacts with the world by maintaining her own Instagram account. The interactions she has with her social media network impact her overall mood and physical well-being. Every time Osma receives a new “like” or “follower,” her mood is enhanced, allowing for her body's terrarium to stay lit and for drops of water to be released in the plant soil. Aside from the real plants that are growing in the terrarium, AR plants also take form around the living structure. The mixing of real plants with virtual ones represents the contrast between our offline identities versus the virtual ones we've created online.
How does AR help you tell stories? What makes AR different from other mediums you may have used? What I love about AR is that it doesn't have to be about creating an entirely new story from scratch. Instead, it can be about adding to an already existing one where reality is the foundation of that story. For me, AR is more like using my environment as a stage to create a story around. It allows me to create collages over reality and by doing so, I am able to add another layer or chapter to an already existing familiar environment. What advice would you give to women creators who want to break into AR? Understand that AR as a medium is still at its infancy and that the vocabulary and rules for it are still being established. Be willing to experiment and accept that failed experiments are bound to happen. Having a strong foundation in the technicality of the medium is important, but always try to stay focused on the story and concept over the technology. Osma (work in progress)The Artist: Ani Liu, research-based artist The Work: The Simulator (with fabricator Randi Shandroski for the garments)
Describe your work in a few sentences — what does it look like? What is it about? In this project, I am contemplating the relationship between the conveniences that technology brings and how they confront our cultural and emotional values. Specifically, I am exploring pregnancy, a notoriously long and "inconvenient" biological process that impacts women greatly.
I started by asking, does the inherent nature of one sex, bearing the majority of reproductive labor, inherently inhibit equality? How might future technologies, such as the development of an artificial womb, change the political and social dynamics as determined by biological differences? Would women be liberated? Or would it signal a dystopia in which capitalist-driven productivity trumps all?
As I did more and more research into a future without physiological pregnancy, I started to wonder whether the embodied experience of carrying a child had any significance to the psychological transitions into parenthood. Many of the uncomfortable physiological experiences (such as nausea, fatigue, irritability) are caused by hormonal shifts, which also promote placental growth, lactation, and feelings of nurturing. Additionally, the experiences of swelling, incontinence, contractions and feeling baby kicks may cultivate patience, humility, and a general shift in how one relates to one's own ego as the body is becoming cohabited.
Titled The Simulator, this work contains a ritual toolkit of objects and wearables that attempt to simulate the experience of being pregnant. In the project, I ponder what we might gain and lose by automating a very ancient biological process (i.e., if pregnancy occurred outside the body through ectogenesis).
As an artwork, this project aims to examine technology as a social practice mediated by artifacts. Technology and society often co-constitute one another — material objects reflect social values and endeavors. The biological sciences have long offered us alternatives to pain — from the epidural to antidepressants — yet societally we still struggle with making sense of these technologies, drawing emotional lines between what is considered “natural.” This work is meant to be a launching point for conversations that thoughtfully critique and expose biopolitical prejudices, and to reflect on the relationship between gender, technology, and our relationships to pain in the current day.
How does AR help you tell stories? What makes AR different from other mediums you may have used? While this piece does not utilize AR in the traditional sense, it does strive to augment the viewer's notion of reality, while telling a story of a speculative future. It is a piece that inherently questions the role of simulations and augmented realities. Can a wearable that stimulates contractions, nausea and stretch marks cause men to experience more empathy towards women? Can the physiological experience of pregnancy prepare parents for parenthood? How does knowledge get transferred from embodied experiences, and can our technologies possibly play a role in these relationships? These were some of the questions I was asking throughout making the work.
What advice would you give to women creators who want to break into AR? First of all, I would say that women shouldn't feel intimidated to use AR tools! Secondly, I would suggest to anyone making work in AR not to fetishize the tool itself, but to use these tools to tell meaningful stories that would have impact regardless of the novelty of the platform.The Simulator (work in progress)
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