Sensorium: Centre for Digital Art and Technology

Sensorium: Centre for Digital Art and Technology (York University, Canada) is pleased to present the exhibition “Life, A Sensorium,” as part of ISEA2020.

The exhibition unfolds at the nexus of art, science and technology through the works of artists affiliated with Sensorium, who collectively explore the entangled ecologies of the post-natural world. Through multi-sensory experiences that include installations, virtual and mixed reality, 360° videos, performances, expanded media and sculptural forms, these artists explore the different ways that contemporary sensorial relations?human/non-human, natural/ artificial?stage complex articulations and expansions of the real.

In this show, computer-generated organisms interact with viewing bodies. Site-specific installations, kinetic sculptures, virtual environments, and video games explore our interactions and collaborations with multi-species ecologies. The works in “Life, A Sensorium” range from shadow plays and optical illusions to VR wanderings through cosmic orchestral stagings. The blended physical and virtual nature of these aesthetic interactions and environments provide access into worlds not ordinarily perceptible.

In this virtual iteration of the exhibition, we present excerpts of documentation and interviews with the artists as “capsules” of their artistic practice. For these videos, artists were asked: “What does sentience mean to you with respect to your work?” and “Why sentience now?” as prompts to explore the situation of their work within the ISEA 2020 theme.