INDEX 2022: EXPOSIÇÃO – CALUM BOWDEN – WORLDS WITH(OUT) US

Worlds
With(out) Us is a social VR journey to the edge of scientific
knowledge. The story shifts between human, animal, bacterial, geological and
machinic perspectives to unravel mysteries about the diverse forms of life
found around, and deep inside, a lithium mine. Some of these organisms look
nothing like what scientists thought life might look like, but they could hold
the key to resituating human life in the universe and reanimating its shadows.Participants start by occupying the perspective of
various species found around a lithium mine. They must discover the connections
in the world around them by working together to get to different stages of the
story. They are asked to move around and interact with things in the world,
developing ways of using their bodies in alien and unfamiliar ways. The
audience observing those in VR witness a social sculpture take shape from their
emergent behaviour. Calum Bowden collaborates on stories, worlds, and
platforms that reconnect the cultural with the technological, economical,
political and ecological. He co-founded Trust and Black Swan. Trust is a
network of utopian conspirators, a sandbox for creative, technical and critical
projects, and site of experimentation for new ways of learning together. Black
Swan is a Berlin-based collective pursuing horizontal and decentralized
approaches to the traditional art world templates for art making.