We Live In An Ocean Of Air ~ Saatchi’s latest AI Exhibition
Between the black walls of the Saatchi gallery’s Salon 009 are two floor-to-ceiling screens projecting visuals of an other-worldly landscape that seems to belong in a Sci-Fi universe. Half a dozen figures are flattened into silhouettes against each of these bright screens.
A person who does not know better may assume these individuals are wearing diving equipment; their outlines tell of big goggles, chunky oxygen tanks and cables surrounding their torsos. Some of the figures slowly stretch their arms up and grip at the air; some carefully crouch down and wave their arms in front of them; they are all moving as if they are swimming and walking simultaneously.
In reality, this “diving equipment” is a kit of cutting-edge Virtual Reality technology and these individuals are experiencing Marshmallow Laser Feast’s latest multi-sensory immersive installation.
My photographs from the exhibition.
When it is your group’s turn, staff members assist you in fastening the machinery around you. The apparatus consists of heart rate monitors on both wrists and one ear, a padded goggle-like VR headset (which also monitors your breath) and a futuristic backpack.
Once sufficiently geared-up, the room as you knew it has disappeared. You are in a pitch black room with a white grid boundary (which ensures you do not bump into the walls). White text appears in front of you. It hovers in mid air and says “We Live In An Ocean Of Air” - the name of the exhibition.
The meditative tone of the twelve-minute experience becomes crystal clear when, through the headphones, a woman’s voice invites you to “take a deep breath”.
Puffs of marble-sized blue particles appear as you breathe out through your nose. Your hands have turned into pulsating constellations of red particles. You cannot see your feet.
Next, a landscape begins to materialise around you. White and blue particles fall from nowhere like confetti and quickly you are standing on a mossy forest floor and there is a giant Sequoia tree in front of you. You can walk into the tree and it feels as if you are in a cave. Looking up reveals a tunnel of trunk. Even though, in reality, you are bounded by walls, the projection extends beyond that, creating the illusion of a limitless landscape.
With the noise of rustling leaves and your own heartbeat in your ears, and gentle wind machines brushing your skin, the installation is truly multi-sensory.
After the opportunity to explore, the landscape begins to disintegrate and morph into clouds of particles and twisting glowing ropes. It feels as if you are on the alien planet in James Cameron’s Avatar. You can interact with the projections; they move and change colour as you ‘touch’ them.
Eventually the world reforms and the Sequoia tree is back. Then this fades into darkness where floating white text asks you to take off your headset.
Barnaby Churchill Steel (co-founder of Marshmallow Laser Feast) explains in a YouTube interview that the underlying message of the installation is “that there is no such thing as an individual”.
The installation certainly succeeds in communicating this notion. The participants are quite literally ungrounded (or at least losing sight of your legs causes that sensation). The lack of evidence of your own physical presence - with the ghostly ability to walk through trees - as well as the abundance of multi-sensory stimuli, work together to allow the participant to temporarily lose themselves. Steel explained how one of Marshmallow Laser Feast’s aims is to demonstrate symbiosis between humans and plants, specifically the sequoia tree: “you can literally breathe in the oxygen as it comes out of the tree”.
On their website, Marshmallow Laser Feast claim that this is “an opportunity to learn about the symbiotic systems of nature”. They continue to describe that the “human cardiovascular system interacts with the mirrored natural networks that unite the forest: capillaries, arteries and mitochondria flow into leaf, phloem and mycelium…”
Steel explained that “to experience it is very different to being told about it”. The successful employment of technology, enabling people to visualise what cannot be seen, is something to be celebrated. However, I disagree with Marshmallow Laser Feast’s strong suggestion that this is an educational experience. No information about these natural scientific processes is provided. Perhaps the shapes and actions of the imagery do correlate with occurrences in nature, but to the participant these movements seem only symbolic of natural forces.
On their pamphlet, Marshmallow Laser Feast also state that they “confront (the) issues (of) the protection and regeneration of ecosystems… head on”. I see no evidence of this. While they do celebrate the beauty of the forest ecosystem and our biological connection with it, nothing in their exhibition alluded to the need to protect and regenerate it.
Nevertheless, the experience was a thought-provoking and creditable demonstration of the immersive capacity of technology, and certainly very enjoyable. I encourage everyone to go.
