ACMI + RMIT Audience Lab: August Expo 2024

Welcome To the Memoryscape explores anthropogenic climate change in the context of the city of Venice through speculative and digital storytelling. Venice is vulnerable and storied, afflicted by air pollution, rising sea levels and over-tourism. Juliet uses mis-en-scene and narrative along with analogue and digital multi-modal processes and programs to create an otherworldly Memoryscape of the city transforming through human-induced climate change. You will encounter a version of the city in virtual reality and experience the potential trajectory of our planet if current trends persist, as well as alternative futures if change occurs

Unbound is a multichannel video installation examining notions of freedom expressed by Persian female poets of the past millennia and interpreted through performance. The project is informed by Nizami Ganjavi’s Quintet (Khamsa) and responds to the vibrant Persian miniature illuminations from 16th-century manuscripts of these epic poems held at the State Library of Victoria, where the installation will be exhibited. Weaving fact and fiction, freedoms of voice, choice and expression are explored through a feminist lens, acknowledging and unearthing women's rendition of history over centuries while remaining conversant with current socio/political events.

Created in collaboration with actor and performer Salme Geransar, sound composition by Ai Yamamoto.

Open: 11am-1.15pm

You’re At A Party is an interactive fiction game that explores the complexities of queer relationships. Unfolding over a single night, at a house party in a suburban sharehouse, the player character Issac comes face to face with his ex Ethan, and Ethan’s new partner Perry. Thrust into this awkward situation, the player has to navigate the various rooms of the sharehouse, and decide where they want to go, and who they want to talk to; or to avoid.

The Human Algorithm is an immersive fever dream interrogating the impact of artificial intelligence on human behaviour and cognition. Maximalist in its approach, this work is crafted by and with generative AI tools, weaving its narrative through text sampling. Contemporary philosophers, scientists, and theorists are digitally replicated as interview subjects, with their voices and likenesses cloned. Our narrator, a meta-human-created avatar, delivers broken fragments of humanity’s literary classics. The Human Algorithm is an immersive video and sound experience that builds a web of thinking about the existential threat posed to humanity by the proliferation of AI.

Enter The Zone and explore an innovative data visualisation that charts the flow of online news stories about climate change. This dynamic network graph grows and evolves over time, creating a living, breathing representation of the pace of contemporary news and information cultures. You'll have the opportunity to provide valuable feedback on its visual representation and impact, helping to refine the project for future installations.

Open: 1.45-4.00pm

Multi-Dynamic Finger Painting is a gestural interaction system designed with Meta Quest platforms. Hand gestures are crucial for visual expressions in art. This exploration is inspired by traditional ink painting and calligraphy, where the hand's force and gesture contribute to the work's nuanced and rich expressions.

The system was created for a multi-dynamic interaction featuring gestural recognition, pressure sensing, and haptic feedback. It allows you to create VR paint strokes with dynamic width controlled by pinch gestures and dynamic opacity controlled by hand pressure with a handheld silicon device.

Empathic Growth is a multi-screen installation merging plant and human biosignals to visualise from different perspectives. This work uses supervised learning with affective computing to transform galvanic skin response (GSR) signals, influenced by natural and artificial sounds, into immersive visual experiences. 

Inspired by Ursula K. Le Guin's book Changing Planes, you co-create unique sentient hybrids with plants, exploring shared emotions and consciousness. This work invites participants to journey through different planes, culminating in a digital society where hybrid forms communicate through social dreams.

Support received from: SensiLab at Monash University, CMA Lab at Hong Kong University of Science and Technology (Guangzhou), AIS at Hong Kong University of Science and Technology

AnchoringVR is a multi-sensory canvas that was designed for patients who go through or could benefit from psychotherapy. Users follow a guide to build an immersive, permanent record of ideas, realisations and pearls of wisdom that are collected over time. While constructing this audio-visual mind map, they begin to understand their mind better and maintain an ongoing connection to their best self insights.

Enosis Therapeutics was formed to advance experiential moments in therapy by leveraging VR’s unique, state-altering properties. The two founders, a scientist and an architect Agnieszka D. Sekula, and a medical doctor Dr. Prashanth Puspanathan, promote non-cognitive, emotional and embodied aspects of treatment.