Humans are bad at understanding chaos and complexity. In particular, we expect our technology to behave predictably and consistently. But when digital infrastructure interacts with society, the outcomes can rarely be predicted. Increasingly, humanity is struggling to understand the systems we have created and to unpick our own multimodal interactions with them. We find that, in our very attempt to draw order from the chaos of nature, we have created a new ecology of disorder.

Datacytes is a speculative mixed reality work that imagines a society where nature has recolonised our digital infrastructure. As global temperatures rise, new strains of fungus begin to exploit the one resource still to be found in excess – our data.

The work consisted of an installation, a fictional radio programme, and a virtual reality experience. The participants were asked to imagine a world in which strains of fungus have colonised our information infrastructure by donning a VR headset and attempting to commune with the fungus.

Datacytes was a mixed reality project assembled during the Virtual Fictions programme at the School of Machines in Berlin during August 2016. The work was displayed during the Virtual Fictions final show.

Media

Collaborators

• Artist — Meredith Thomas

Shows

• Closer: An Evening of Virtual Reality