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Mark Ramos & Ziyang Wu

Networked Ecosystem
In Networked Ecosystem, natural phenomena have been replaced by digital and artificial systems as forces that drive development: Electricity/battery = sustenance, WIFI signals = nutrition, Lidar data = fire/heat. Data Organisms populate this digital ecosystem as native life forms in the form of bots, AI’s, and avatars. Visitors to this networked landscape develop new kinds of digital senses to experience data as environmental changes, and interact with the simulated world and each other in an ever-changing online environment.

Breakdown

Interactive audiovisual dance performance
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Breakdown is an interactive audiovisual dance performance presented at the Ears Eyes and Feet event in the B. Iden Payne Theater, May 2014, UT Austin Texas.
Breakdown explores a 2 dimensional simulated world in which its physical rules are constantly being changed and manipulated by an external entity. An inhabitant of this world is in constant motion to adapt to its characteristics. He interacts with the physical rules and develops a dialogue with the entity who controls the forces. Eventually the inhabitant ends up breaking the world’s rules and release himself into a new world, a new dimension.

Maria Guta and Adrian Ganea

Cyberia

Performance & live computer generated simulation

A postmodern fairytale, Cyberia takes place somewhere in a cold distant East, stretching between and endless imaginary realm and a vast physical space. It is a westwards journey towards a promised future with no arrival and no return. There is no here or there, only a twilight zone between a departure point and a simulated destination. Between digital video projections and a physical setting, using the mechanics of a video-game engine with a motion capture suit, Cyberia is the simulation of an endless pre-climax state where a performer and a CG avatar dance as one to the rhythms of an imaginary West. In a world oversaturated by digital data –mysticism and paranormal are as popular as ever. Emerging technologies are increasingly incorporated in a form of postmodern spiritualism, as Arthur C. Clarke points out: “Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.