Connect to Create – a new VR hybrid exhibition titled “New Formula for Life”

Loneliness and increased isolation of people who work from home has been exacerbated during Covid. We are leading increasingly atomised lives, disconnected from each other, and cut off from our work communities. As the shift from office to homework accelerates, supporting each other is getting more challenging. 

This was the main reason that I responded with enthusiasm to a proposal to develop a large creative art collaboration of International Fellows. In my day job, I run a cooperative Cybersalon.org, and I know first-hand the positives of inviting like-minded people to share their creative ideas. I was truly intrigued to be approached by Julie Samuels (UK) and Zoe Camper (US), two RSA Fellows who were looking for support for a hybrid exhibition project.  The mission was to connect 25 fellows and artists from UK, US, Columbia, Canada, and Morocco in an international collaboration on the topic of connection, mutual support and giving voice to underrepresented voices.

The aim was to combat the trend for disconnection and instead create a collaborative network to bring Fellow artists and activists together in a joined, physical and Virtual Reality art project.

Zoe Camper and Julie Samuels were the souls of the project and the lead curators, who brought together large number of contributing international artists, with the physical exhibition taking place in Adams House from Nov 2023. The Exhibition will continue to March 2024, then the artworks will move to Hive in Warwickshire for April/May. 

Zoe and Julie run the project under Augmented Society RSA Thematic Network’s 2023-24, creating a 6-month long hybrid exhibition in Adams House and, the first for RSA, in a connected Virtual Reality space galleries created by the original Internet Café Cyberia VR.

After many different trials and some failed approaches (who said innovation is easy), we have settled on a hybrid concept to give this unique and exciting exhibition space in RSA House London, but to use physical venue as a virtual door via hybrid portal through which visitors can explore the creative work of contributors from Bogota to Rabat, Las Vegas to London, Warwick, Lincoln in large, monumental scale. Think Narnia but without the wardrobe!

Both original works as well as their giant Digital Twins in VR were made available for free access, using the ASN 3 connected Virtual Reality Galleries.

The opening of the exhibition was held on The Steps, with international artists commenting on their artwork via Zoom.  A guided tour in Adams House followed, with visitors able to see the works on the wall in the House, as well as follow a guided tour in VR, presented by Cybersalon team. After launch, to expand the access to as many visitors as we could, the curating team has organised weekly online meet ups in the VR Galleries, where visitors can meet the artists and hear them speak about their creative experience. https://www.augmentedsociety.org for event details 

As we selected a friendly VR platform called Spatial.Io, the access to VR is open to low-tech visitors, with artwork visible from both mobile and desktop with no requirement for VR headset. 

It has been an amazing experience for us on the team to walk around the ASN gallery with other people, artists and their friends and visitors. You can see the tours in a video in Cyberia Café.

Over 25 artists were invited to share their work in the hybrid event. As I am a big fan of maps, the artwork that I was immediately attracted to was by 

Julie Samuels – her fantasy maps illustrate fragile connections that are lost and found. Julie is an author of a recent book “Adoption in Digital Age”, where she shares her experience of adoption of her autistic son. They are both enjoy living in Lincolnshire, weaving back their new emotional support networks, something Julie felt she lost after a difficult transition from London.

More musings on ‘lost and found’ theme has emerged from work of Dr Rashida Marbouh (FRSA from Morocco), where she brings back from near extinction the intricate Moroccan heritage textile making skills. Rashida weaves those themes back into an updated modern Moroccan garment, sharing her journey of past and future culture connection. Themes of cultural alienation, seeking reconnection and enriching future with the shards of the past are visible in her beautiful work.

Our desire to reconnect and find ‘soul’ in computers is examined in the works of Ismael Kherroubi-Garcia. He reveals our deep anxiety and roots of obsession with AI. The artist reveals our reflective need to connect to ‘the machine’, to imbue non-organic objects like computers with human-like intelligence and emotions.

Modern isolation and mental stress it causes is visible in works by Anne Waldon. Anne is a Transformation Coach by background, focusing on finding paths of passage from past ways of work, life, and connecting to modern incarnation of community, examining modern stress and anxiety as it morphs into new formats.

I was also fascinated to discover another US-based Fellow, Sawyer Rose – Rose has created artworks that connect us to lives of free Black Women in 1830 America. Their struggles and the need for collective action are visibly emerging in their early rebuilding of life and challenges of reconnecting to community of free folk.

Finally, for me personally, the most intriguing piece was by Zoe Camper, Las Vegas-based Fellow, and co-curator of the exhibition. Zoe is one of the pioneers of AI bots for health applications and has long standing interest in cybersecurity and identity. Her work of multiple portraits of her friends is exploring the beauty of trusted friends, with assurance of provenance of the artwork. She is exploring tools to fight fakes and use of blockchain to bring trust back to art collectors’ community.

The project was supported by London Fellows, Eva Pascoe, (Cybersalon.org, Digital Futures Thinktank based in London) and VR Studio “PCM Creative”. Our amazing RSA Staff with Celia Barton, Jess Hyett and Hannah Derozario gave their time generously and provided a steer on how to synthesize the beauty of the physical venue of Adams House with meaningful integration with VR gallery spaces.

For more details and descriptions of each of the artists please visit ASN Website