Media Under Dystopia WISPer Edition: Explore the XR Metaverse Exhibition at MUD Foundation

Exhibition program

Media Under Dystopia WISPer edition: a public XR metaverse

Artists

Gretchen Andrew

"Media Under Dystopia WISPer edition: a public XR metaverse" Exhibition to Open at MUD Foundation.

Mark your calendars for a remarkable exploration of the digital frontier! The "Media Under Dystopia WISPer edition: a public XR metaverse" is set to unveil its doors at the MUD Foundation on November 29, 2023, at 7:00 p.m., and will run through June 30, 2024.

As our interactions with technology evolve, transcending boundaries and embracing these new immersive narratives becomes a necessity. The name "WISPer" derives from the fusion of "Whisper" and "WISP," which stands for Wireless Internet Service Provider, reflecting our commitment to making digital art accessible to all.

The MUD Foundation's project stands at the forefront of the extended reality (XR) revolution, establishing connections among a diverse array of artists, communities, and educational institutions within the immersive landscape of our MUD-verse. Through an array of workshops, eTalks, and our innovative XRLab, we aim to create a dynamic hub for artists and organizations actively participating in, or aspiring to be part of, the exciting future of XR and its profound impact on art, education, and beyond.
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The exhibition, taking place from November 29 to June 2024, will showcase artists, projects, and organizations dedicated to exploring and constructing XR ecosystems as an integral part of their community engagement. The confirmed artists include Gretchen Andrew, Dhiren Dasu, Richard Garet, Laurence de Valmy, Connie Bakshi, Leo Castaneda, Amelie Schläeffer, Alba Triana, Jose Hernandez, Martin Carrillo, Rodolfo Peraza, and Ariel Baron-Robbins with the LOOP Critique project.

"Media Under Dystopia WISPer edition: a public XR metaverse" will be activated through the MUD Foundation's WISPer program (Digital Art in Public Space) and the XRCamp program (Art, Tech, and Immersive Interfaces). These initiatives will offer a series of workshops, enlightening talks, and captivating public art installations, seamlessly bridging the realms of art and communities with XR technology.

Our heartfelt appreciation goes out to our esteemed sponsors, whose unwavering support has brought this exhibition to life. We extend our sincere thanks to the Knight Foundation for their generous support of Onland XR technology. We also acknowledge the contributions of the National Endowment for the Arts, the State of Florida Cultural Affairs, Miami Dade Cultural Affairs, and our esteemed tech startup partner and founder, Next Reality Digital.

Stay tuned for our extended press release revealing the coming workshops and XR activations.

portal

Media Under Dystopia WISPer edition: a public XR metaverse

The exhibition, taking place from November 29 to June 2024, will showcase artists, projects, and organizations dedicated to exploring and constructing XR ecosystems as an integral part of their community engagement. The confirmed artists include Gretchen Andrew, Dhiren Dasu, Richard Garet, Laurence de Valmy, Connie Bakshi, Leo Castaneda, Amelie Schläeffer, Alba Triana, Jose Hernandez, Martin Carrillo, Rodolfo Peraza, and Ariel Baron-Robbins with the LOOP Critique project.

Enter Metaverse

Laurence de Valmy

Post

In the POST paintings, Laurence de Valmy combines iconic artworks skillfully appropriated with imagined conversations on Instagram, historically accurate yet humorous. In the tradition of art appropriation, she brings her own view to existing artworks, pay a tribute to their authors, and play with the concept of originality.

Enter Metaverse

Richard Garet

Archetypes #1 and Archetypes #2

“Archetypes #1” and “Archetypes #2” are generative moving image pieces that explore the realms of duration, digital artifacts, repetition, and variation. These artworks are born from the unique synergy between creative vision and the digital medium. The genesis of these works can be traced back to the computer environment, where the artist harnessed the limitless potential of technology to create a sensory experience. These pieces seek to enchant the retinal expectation, inviting viewers to explore the ever-evolving interplay between art and technology through the language of pixels and algorithms, and the profound reflection on the digital environment. Richard Garet explores the evolution and experience of art integrated into digital files through NFTs. He seeks to bridge the medium's inherent constructs with virtual experiential conditions. This condition creates an aesthetic realm that celebrates the luminous emission of the screen, the evolving technologies that shape our visual encounters, and the ethereal surface of the screen that unifies various artistic mediums.

Enter Metaverse

Dhiren Dasu aka Shapeshifter7

Tech High

A neurotransmitter rush fueled by digital tools... also digital fools. The gamification of technology and media has made us eager and willing participants in a technological Pavlovian experiment. Our biochemistry is now triggered by the highs and lows of symbols rendered in the flurry of emoji shorthand. All trading is now a real time game of watching flicker free screens that promise rewards, falls, and spirals.

Enter Metaverse

Amelie Schlaeffer

Magic Lasso

The series of sculpture and paintings in this show composed under the title 'Magic Lasso', use a common photo editing tool to grapple with over-curation, censorship and skewing of perspective. The separation of space within and outside of the Magic Lasso works to censor surroundings; what must be seen and what mustn’t. It serves as an exploration of the emerging need to artificially produce and be in control of one’s image, and pushes the Magic Lasso as a utilitarian object placed in our world to streamline our perception. Displaced characters and fragments found on digital vacations on Google Street View are treated as found objects, pulled into the real world where their backgrounds disappear on a blank canvas.

Enter Metaverse

Connie Bakshi

My silence would be as stone

Inspired by Audre Lorde’s ‘A Litany for Survival’, MY SILENCE WOULD BE AS STONE envisions the invisible hopes and fears across the colonial history and generations of the artist’s lineage, calling upon the petition-and-response structure of the litany as both a recursive process and manifold introspection within AI conversational and image synthesis models.
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As a triptych, the piece manifests the ritual practice of silent prayer between object, environment, and repetition — revealing the envelopes of identity that would not diminish but be amplified by context, the physical tension between what is expressed and what is withheld, and the temporal boundary where the voices of the past would echo those of the present in an unspoken dream of self-sovereignty.

Enter Metaverse

Gretchen Andrew

Wild vs Controlled: deGenerative Robot

Wild Era Art: Origin Story. This robot is the arena for on canvas battles between wild art and A.I & Algorithms. Algorithms have a normalizing force where data, people, ideas and systems that bend their shapes to fit into their acceptable inputs are rewarded with greater visibility. Have you heard of Instagram Face or Face Tuning? Face Tuning algorithms use AI to adjust the size, shape and smoothness of faces and bodies before posting them. When this adjustment occurs on a photograph it is seamless, often not fully visible. When this same adjustment is applied via this robot onto a wild (and still wet) portrait painting the result is mess, scars, tension, areas of noticeable conflict between the wild and the controlled. There is a tension between who you are and who society says you should be. I paint portraits that reveal that tension. Wild vs Controlled. Which are you?

Enter Metaverse

Leo Castaneda

Game viewing gardens

A garden of sculptural machines and furniture for viewing a video game inspired by fusions of futuristic industrial design, pre-Columbian sculpture, architectural renderings and video game conference aesthetics. Game Viewing Gardens brings viewers into a space partially furniture showroom and partially mythological location where beings, technology and spaces are interrelated from the neo-primordial gaming universe of Castañeda’s “Levels & Bosses: Part One”. Sculpturally reinterpreting “Let’s play” scenarios where a person showcases a walk-through of a game either online or in a stage, this work imagines the scenarios as virtual performance. Game Viewing Gardens is available on the MUD verse.

Enter Metaverse

José Hernández Sánchez and Martin Carrillo

When Are You?

“When are you?” will transforms a physical space into dynamic soundscapes using a reverb system that reacts to the environment and audience, combined with ambisonics audio technology — ambisonics is a method of sound recording and reproduction that aims to create a three-dimensional auditory experience for the listener. The sounds will change according to a listener position creating an immersive experience. Conceptually, the title refers to the interchange of the temporal and spatial aspects of sound. Music unravels in time, yet in “When Are You?” music will unravel depending on the listener’s location.

Enter Metaverse

Verse image by Jose Hernandez and Martin Carrillo.

Lans King

Brainwave Generated Sculpture Prototype No. 11: Tomorrow

Lans King has an NFC microchip implanted in his left hand. His "artist-self" is registered on the blockchain, and it is linked to all of his artworks. Using a variety of wearable devices, Lans collects physical, emotional, and cerebral biodata. His digital artworks are often derived or generated from that data.

This virtual sculpture was generated by the artist using a brain-computer interface device that captures brain activity data. The data is fed into a generative algorithm and parametric software; each channel is mapped to a specific parameter. The software transforms an initial geometry (such as a sphere) into a variety of new forms that are unique and rare. Through this process, thoughts become forms. This specific work was generated by Lans's brainwave data as he focused his thoughts on the word "tomorrow."

This work is a prototype for a performance/generative artwork called The Cyborg Manifesto. In 2024, Lans King will tour this series of performances during which he will generate virtual sculptures in real-time while wearing his brain-computer interface device. For this performance, he will spend 24 hours in a glass pod, connected to a computer running a generative algorithm. These digital sculptures will then be output as physical forms.

Enter Metaverse

Rodolfo Peraza

Naked Link Pilgrim 4.0

"Naked Link Pilgrim 4.0" visualizes 3D Google satellite maps to show internet traffic of Cuban IP addresses from 2015 to 2022, focusing on the connection between Cuba and the United States. This version extends the digital twinning concept, creating a virtual replica of key cities central to this internet linkage. It integrates historical data with real-time information in an XR lab setting, offering an immersive metaverse experience and highlighting Miami's role in this network.

Enter Metaverse

Ariel Baron-Robbins

Loop Art Critique

The Loop residence program consists of XR online studios with the artists David Sainté, Inbar Hagai, Match Zimmerman, Joelle McTigue, Zhou Peng, Ryan Seslow, AdrienneRose Gionta, Angie Amaro, BBraio, Ibuki Kuramochi, cha, Wenjun Chen, and Denis Rovinskiy.

Enter Metaverse

XR Creator

Media Under Dystopia WISPer edition: a public XR metaverse

Artists

Media Under Dystopia WISPer edition: a public XR metaverse

Post

Archetypes #1 and Archetypes #2

Tech High

Magic Lasso

My silence would be as stone

Wild vs Controlled: deGenerative Robot

Game viewing gardens

When Are You?

Brainwave Generated Sculpture Prototype No. 11: Tomorrow

Naked Link Pilgrim 4.0

Loop Art Critique