IMMATERIAL: SPATIAL AFFAIRS

Join us for this special showcase of SPATIAL AFFAIRS – Extended Reality Experiences, a collaborative artist residency programme between MAP, HEK (House of Electronic Arts) in Basel, Switzerland, Tabakalera International Center for Contemporary Culture in San Sebastián, Spain.

Artists Géraldine Honauer, Juan Ferrer, Natalia Cabrera, and Ìfẹ́olúwa Ọ̀ṣúnkọ̀yà, developed new XR-based projects during the six-week residencies in the summer of 2024. With the support of technology partners iart and TEKNIKER, and research partner metaLSB (at) Basel, the residency artists created site-specific installations that explore the boundaries between physical and digital spaces.

Symbiotica Vol 2
By: Juan Ferrer and Natalia Cabrera (MAP, Bengaluru)

Symbiotica vol. 2: The Webs of Coordination is an Augmented Reality interactive installation that gathers multiple players to weave symbiosis into each other and become a lichen, a pioneering organism made out of green algae, fungal mycelium, and cyanobacteria. Primarily based on the research of biologist Lynn Margulis, the work highlights the collaboration between species from different Kingdoms of life to generate a new being that performs a pioneering symbiosis. Lichens not only allowed plants and animals to populate the Earth but also emerge as a metaphoric figure for a new understanding of the ‘individual’.

Agents of Èṣù’s Quantum World
By: Ifẹ́olúwa Ọ̀ṣúnkọ̀yà (HEK Switzerland)

Agents of Èṣù’s Quantum World (2024) is a multiplayer VR experience where participants assume the role of quantum bits (qubits), collaboratively forming a quantum circuit through their interactions. This circuit is processed, and its outcomes reshape the performer’s environment. In this project, participants embody Èṣù, the orisha (deity) of crossroads and non-determinism, becoming creators of quantum algorithms. Like Èṣù, they navigate endless possibilities before making a choice. The project delves into the individual’s role as an active agent in a sea of possibilities, influencing the world around them. In a society driven by hustle culture, it poses the question: what happens when the ‘performance’ of life no longer guarantees future rewards? Can insights from the orisha Èṣù and Ifá texts provide guidance for navigating uncertainties in emerging technologies? By extending performance beyond the stage into daily life, the project explores how quantum processing might shape the future, with our actions influencing technological progress.

Currents
By: Géraldine Honauer

The project “Currents” focuses on an augmented reality (AR) experience that allows users to interact with live environmental data, such as air pollution and air flows, through body tracking and motion capture technologies. This AR environment aims to dynamically visualise in response to human movement, enhancing user engagement with critical environmental issues.

Currents is an immersive extended reality experience where environmental data becomes a sensory performance. Real-time CO₂ emissions and air flows are transformed into interactive virtual ecosystems through VR headsets. This living digital world reacts to your movement — bioluminescent plankton light up as you engage with the invisible forces around you.

ZWEI is supported by the “Film and Media Art” committee of the Canton of Basel-Stadt and Basel-Landschaft (Switzerland).

Zwei (Two)
By: Beat Brogle & iart
At the centre of the mixed reality work Zwei are two virtual “bubbles” – amorphous, algorithmically controlled beings that react in real time to their environment and the behaviour of visitors. Their behaviour is based on a structure of biological stimulus-response patterns, from which individual characteristics develop in the course of interaction. As part of a long-term media art project, Zwei explores the relationship between virtual beings and their environment – from simple algorithmic processes to the perspective of artificial intelligence.

Zwei is supported by the “Film and Media Art” committee of the Canton of Basel-Stadt and Basel-Landschaft (Switzerland).