HYPNOCOMMS
2021, VR Experience, 00:01:53
Created in residence with Facebook Open Arts and Oculus, Hypnocomms is a 360-experience designed to be viewed in VR. It envisions a future technology that allows users to connect astrally with another being, forming a metaphysical dialogue. The piece directs the viewer’s gaze through 360 space, carefully choreographing their perspective. The narrative follows a user’s journey out of her physical body and into the digitally mediated metaphysical realm. She glitches, shifting into a liminal form before being channelled into the data stream of other consciousnesses. The swirling consciousnesses narrow, revealing the desired contact and the two entities engage in a sequence of spiritual coalescence.
Drawing on anime character design, the work explores the artist’s early introduction to arts and creativity, reimbuing her practice with the presence of the artist’s hand. The audio emulates commercial dial tones and modem connections, integrating them into a surreal and dreamlike soundscape.
Hypnocomms imagines mystical and magical potentials for technology, rationally aligning aspirations of spiritual progression with the omnipresent nature of techno-capitalism. It predicts new realms of human experience, tempered with existing paradigms of technological power structures.
Audio by Ben Dixon
Experience on Oculus App Lab here