This virtual-reality experience which incorporates performance weaves a distant future where audiences access the excavated digital home of an ancient valley dweller in search of evil eye treatments, passed down from mother to daughter for generations across the Levant. Nazar fully immerses audiences, temporarily transforming the virtual stage, in a ritualistic act of soft resistance that restores the body, collective memory, and intangible heritage.
The project reflects on the ways we have and continue to sustain our bodies and the spaces we inhabit against slow violence. It is part of an ongoing research that employs the use of motion-capture suits, game engines and open-source development tools to encode these acts of defiance into APKs, mocap data and other digital formats that support dynamic archival practices. And, incorporates them in the artificial generation and simulation of future practices.
During the residency I wish to explore AI powered virtual performance that draws on the material collected during the past two years. This digital archive consists of audio/video recordings, mocap data, ingredients catalogs and 3D scans. I imagine a corner at wwwforum, where audiences can take turns entering the habitat of the AI folk practitioner from the future, to experience her protective performances.
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