Pioneer: Art, Augmented Reality and Lost Heritage

This one-day exhibition showcases the cutting-edge augmented reality artworks of Luciana Haill and is the London premiere of Pioneer, an ambitious, augmented reality (AR) artwork which explores urgent contemporary themes around innovation, hubris and technology elitism through a reflection on Victorian engineering. The work juxtaposes Victorian engineer Magnus Volk’s unique seagoing electric train on stilts called ‘Pioneer’ (nicknamed ‘Daddy Long Legs’ (1896-1901) to contemporary mobile technologies such as augmented reality, 5G and SpaceX’s Starlink satellite network.

Also, on show will be a newly updated version of Haill’s earlier series of augmented reality artworks entitled Apparitions, inspired by three Victorian landmarks lost in wars, storms and during rapid gentrification.

The artworks can be triggered using special apps and images or actually at the sites of lost heritage via geotagging. In the case of Pioneer, the AR artwork is geotagged in such a way that the seagoing train actually appears to travel along the original route of the tracks (between Brighton and Rottingdean) as you walk the coastal path. The works are accompanied by immersive soundscapes which can be experienced using headphones or a wearable SUBPAC tactile audio system.

The artist, Luciana Haill will be present and happy to demonstrate the works and answer questions.

Join artists Luciana Haill and Alex May for a discussion about how artists can work with augmented reality to explore lost heritage and contemporary issues around technology and gentrification, chaired by Anna Dumitriu. Luciana Haill will present Pioneer and Apparitions and the background to her practice and ideas including her work with EEG brainwave analysis to explore lucid dreaming. Alex May will discuss the process and challenges of bringing historical and natural forms into the world using augmented reality. The presentations will be followed by a discussion and a chance for the audience to ask questions.

Luciana Haill is a British contemporary artist working with new technologies, neuroscience, and the unconscious to make invisible mental processes visible. Her work explores lucid dreaming, meditation and nostalgia and she is known of as a pioneer of EEG art (working with brainwave analysis) as well as augmented reality art. She creates artworks which combine digital media, augmented reality, performance, drawing, sculpture, installation and binaural soundscapes. Her work has been shown internationally at locations including The Royal Academy (UK), Waag Society Amsterdam, The Psychedelic Society of The Netherlands, Liverpool International Festival of Psychedelia, KIBLA in Slovenia, CENART in Mexico City, The Royal Institution (UK), and The Sage Gateshead (UK).

http://www.lucianahaill.co.uk/

Alex May is a British contemporary artist whose practice questions how our individual and collective experiences of time, and formation of memories and cultural record, are mediated, expanded, and directed by contemporary technologies. His international exhibition profile includes Ars Electronica, LABoral (Spain), IMPAKT (Netherlands), FACT (Liverpool), Furtherfield (London), WRO Media Art Biennale (Poland), HeK (Basel), The Francis Crick Institute, Bletchley Park, Eden Project, Science Gallery in Dublin (Ireland) and Bengaluru (India), ZHI Art Museum (China), and the Beall Center for Art + Technology,

University of California, Irvine. Alex May has artwork in several collections including ZKM, The Amelia, The Computer Arts Society CAS50 collection, Eden Project and the Irish Linen Centre & Lisburn Museum.

May worked as creative technologist on Pioneer and on the latest version of Apparitions as well as collaborating with Anna Dumitriu on his own AR artwork Blue Flower.

https://alexmayarts.co.uk/

Anna Dumitriu is an award-winning British artist who works with BioArt, sculpture, installation, and digital media to explore our relationship to infectious diseases, synthetic biology and robotics. Past exhibitions include ZKM, Ars Electronica, BOZAR, The Picasso Museum, HeK Basel, and MOCA Taipei. She holds artist-in-residence roles with the modernising Medical Microbiology Project at the University of Oxford, and the National Collection of Type Cultures at the UK Health Security Agency. Current collaborations include the Institute of Epigenetics and Stem Cells at Helmholtz Zentrum in München and the University of Leeds. Anna Dumitriu has artwork in the collections of ZKM, The Computer Arts Society CAS50 collection, Eden Project and the Irish Linen Centre & Lisburn Museum. Dumitriu mentored Luciana Haill as part of the Pioneer project.

https://annadumitriu.co.uk/

Pioneer is supported by a project grant from Arts Council England