Stromatolites - Eternal Return series, 2019
VR experience for HTC Vive
Eternal Return is a series of artworks: together they form a choreographed, mixed-reality exhibition exploring the future of memory. Memory is the biotech of Eternal Return. Stromatolites (the second piece in the Eternal Return series) is an encounter with a digital entity modeled after the first form of memory, the single-cell bacteria, the oldest trace of life on earth, predating human experience by 3.7 billion years. Stromatolites become a human’s companions in this speculative fiction about deep-time co-dependence, within the cyclical nature of the universe. Stromatolites explores the relationship and dependence between digital objects and material substrates by revealing the tight connection between geology, life and digital worlds. It involves VR technologies in friction with: objects, and the human ability to organize perception to build a world via touch, scent, sight and sound. Visitors become witnesses to the capacity of memory within their bodies.
Medium:
A visitor’s choreographed perception via memory, movement, touch, and scent — in friction with sound and sight via VR technology, stereolithography-resin-prints on steel scaffolds, fossilized cyanobacteria, microbial mats, and sponges. The experience is one-to-one and performer-guided. Experience of the virtual is complemented by the performer’s delicate touch and digital presence within the work. Onlookers experience the work outside with a headset.
Duration: 15:00 Min
Credits:
Eternal Return by Lundahl & Seitl (SWE) with ScanLAB Projects
STRP co-production
J. S. Bach’s Fugue in A Minor BWV 543 written for the organ, arranged by Liszt for piano, is performed by Cassie Yukawa-McBurney.
Dramaturgy by Rachel Alexander.
Performers:
Pia Nordin, Lena Kimming & Sara Lindström.
ScanLAB Projects team:
Matt Shaw, Max Čelar, Soma Sato, Manuela
Mesrie, Reuben Carter, Jacques Pillet, Will Trossell, Dorka Makai.
IMAGES
VIDEO LINK
ABOUT THE ARTISTS
Lundahl & Seitl live and work in Stockholm. Their immersive solo projects reinterpret the medium of the exhibition as interpersonal processes via choreography, matter and time. The duo have developed a method and an art form comprising staging, choreographed movement, instructions, and immersive technologies, juxtaposed with material objects and the human ability to organize perception into a world.
ScanLAB is a pioneering creative practice based in London, which digitize the world, transforming temporary moments and spaces into compelling permanent experiences, images and film. They Design online environments, immersive installations and objects. ScanLAB’s prime medium is 3D scanners. By critically observing these machines, a form of machine vision serving as the electronic eyes for billions of mobile phones and driverless vehicles, they hope to get a glimpse of the cartographers of the future.
If you are interested in exhibiting or viewing this artistic VR experience, please send an email to us.
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