Remote Realities Residency
with Trinity Square Video in partnership with Dames Making Games
July-October 2020
For the Remote Realities residency Terán and Vogl proposed a fully immersive, mixed reality experience working with AR/VR, living mycelium biodata-sonification, EEG and, soft-circuit-tactile interfaces. The virtual environment is home to microbial and fungal organisms that dwell in dirt, air, and water within a Boreal forest.
Boreal forests, or taiga, represent the largest terrestrial biome. Forests occupy approximately one-third of Earth's land area, account for over two-thirds of the leaf area of land plants and contain about 70% of carbon present in living things yet despite this significance, humankind continue to have an unbalanced, parasitic like relationship to this important biome.
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Due to COVID restrictions Terán, and Vogl worked together towards a scaled down, conceptual verification, with test subject feedback. Within their VR environment realtime fungal biodata-sonification reacts and responds to human touch.
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In order to integrate living mycelium biodata within the VR environment neuroscientist/media artist Brendan Lehman was brought into the project. Brendan’s expertise in coding EEG data interactions in VR was a perfect match. Working with Ganoderma lucidum (Reishi) and Pleurotus ostreatus (Oyster mushrooms), and Tosca’s bio-sonification modules realtime fungal reactions were brought into Unity.