on view
Batopia
July 26 - July 27, 2024
RSVP
:iidrr Gallery
162 Allen St, New York NY 10002
VR experience hours (RSVP Required):
1 pm - 5:50 pm, July 26;
10 am - 5 pm, July 27
Opening reception (walk-in): 6 pm - 7:00 pm, July 26
BATOPIA is an interactive VR experience that lets the player see the world through the eyes of a bat via Embodied Virtuality. Created by media artist Yiou Wang, HCI researcher Yujie Wang and a team of interaction designers and researchers who navigate between physical and virtual realms, Batopia simulates a bat’s sensory umwelt through conceptual, technological, and imaginative lenses, immersing the player in the world of an animal with sensory modalities very different from our own. Chaos, signal, the nonhuman sense of musicality - Trans-Sensory Mapping, which maps ultrasonic recordings of the Greater Sac-Winged Bat adapted through generative techniques onto both spatial soundscapes and sight, simulates a bat’s phenomenal world amidst a wide range of cognitive, social, and musical contexts.
In this immersive audiovisual experience, you can explore a bat’s nocturnal echolocation, foraging, and the musical sensibilities in their singing. The experience connects people with nonhuman animals by, as philosopher Elizabeth Grosz says, opening them up to the “universe of becoming-other” through the active sensing and navigation of a unique nonhuman experienced world.
Credits:​
​
Concept, creative direction, and production: Yiou Wang, Yujie Wang
Interaction design and programming: Chuhong Wang, Shaoting Zeng
Original field recording & science consultant: Mirjam Knörnschild
Acoustics and sound design consultant: Benjamin Markham
Batopia was made possible with support from CAMIT (Council of the Arts at MIT) and CAF (Culture & Animal Foundation).
past
We May Be in
This Together
Curator: Chiarina Chen
Artists: Chloe Gao, Tong Wu & Yuguang Zhang
November 2 - November 12, 2023
Opening Receptions
Thursday, November 2, 6PM - 9PM
"We don't need another exhibition marveling at the advancement of AI, how it will learn from you and equip you or replace and outrace you. The swings between techno-optimism and pessimism have, in fact, echoed a long history of the arrowlike, linear, progressive role of technology. There's the man and his tool. Then there's always a hero and a villain. Featuring artists Chloe Gao and duo Tong Wu &Yuguang Zhang, We May Be inThis Together counterpoints such a dominant narrative that places AI developments as grand breakthroughs or singular moments and beckons a non-linear, symbiotic path. From generative AI, VR, multimedia installations, sculpted objects, and prints, they present two disparate worlds that reveal ways of 'gathering,' knitting our intricate connections to machine learning as an ongoing collective narrative. The idea of gathering, raised by Le Guin, contests the dualistic conflict-driven view of technology. She posits the first technological tool as the 'basket' to gather, not the spear. Hence, the narrative of technology is reframed from the individualistic, singular 'he' to a plural collective 'we'. Rather than seeing technology as a tool of domination or a linear progression, artists in the show explore how we could work along with AI to evoke stories, memories, and experiences. As our entanglements with technologies become more intimate than ever, we invite you to look around, instead of look ahead."
Bureau of Cloud Management
Tong Wu & Yuguang Zhang
Artist: Tong Wu & Yuguang Zhang
Production Coordinator: Shuang Cai
Exhibition Music Artist: Jamal Green
MARFA
Chloe Gao
Journey into Self
VR, 2023
Screen written/Executive Producer: Congyun Gu
Interaction Designer: Shimin Gu,
Unreal Technical Aritist: Yiran Wang
Visual Designer: Yujie Jiang, Xindi Xu
Spatial Computational Designer: Junling Zhuang