Arts Thread

Above: Driving the Human projects 1. Hyeseon Jeong / 2. Andra Pop-Jurj and Lena Geerts Danau/ 3. Iris Qu/ 4. Eliana Otta Vildoso/ 5. Anne-Sofie Belling, Bea Delgado Corrales, Romy Kaiser & Paula Nerlich / 6. Akwasi Bediako Afrane/ 7. Vincent Rumahloine

Seven projects have been selected to be developed into prototypes as part of the multi-year transdisciplinary project Driving the Human. 

The projects were selected following the Driving the Human festival held in Berlin which saw 21 projects whittled down to seven by a jury.  Throughout 2022, the designers, artists, programmers and technologists will start to bring their ideas to life through workshops and mentoring sessions. The selected projects are:

Do AIs Dream of Climate Chaos by Iris Qu is a screen-based installation of an artificial intelligence agent processing environmental chaos. The speculative AI will collate all climate-related information and try to compute a future where humans, ecosystems and machines can live harmoniously. Eliana Otta Vildoso's  Virtual Sanctuary for Fertilizing Mourning aims to be a virtual space where people can commemorate the Indigenous leaders assassinated in Peru while defending their homes from deforestation and mining. The space will be immersive and provide not only a way for people to pay respect to the deceased but learn more about the threats industrial development pose to indigenous cultures.

Anne-Sofie Belling, Bea Delgado Corrales, Romy Kaiser and Paula Nerlich’s Human-Bacteria Interfaces looks at how bacteria can be used to create new interactive interfaces. Andra Pop-Jurj and Lena Geerts Danau are collaborating on the  Monsters and Ghosts of the Far North project, which will use a game engine to visualise how extractive processes are affecting creatures living in the Arctic. Akwasi Bediako Afrane's TRONS ‘R’ US examines how humans' quest for knowledge and entertainment through gadgets is taking its toll on the natural world.

Hyeseon Jeong will develop The Backpack of Wings: Modern Mythology, a method of geo-tracking wild animals to see if there is truth in ancient myths that animals knew of major natural disasters before they happened. In doing so, Jeong hopes that science will be able to learn from animals to be better prepared for natural disasters in the future as our climate becomes more hostile.

Sedekah Benih by Vincent Rumahloine and Mang Dian is a project that tries to build a safe space and relationship between people from various backgrounds - online and offline - through plants. The three stage project currently has 100 participants and will see them selecting seeds, growing and caring for them and finally harvesting. During this process the participants gather local stories about farmers, creating a rich collection of tales about humanity's connection with cultivating plant life.

All seven Driving the Human projects will be presented to the public in November 2022. Keep an eye on the Driving the Human website for updates.