Our latest Long Gallery exhibition, Hybrid Greening is a fun departure from more traditional formats and offers an immersive experience where art meets science.
Artists Veronika Zeil and Nanette Balchin use mosaic and textile to create installations that work in tandem with moving image, soundscapes and AR (Augmented Reality) technology.
What exactly is Augmented Reality? AR is described as an interactive experience that combines the real world and computer-generated content, for example in Hybrid Greening, AR allows you to transform yourself into a tree!
Developed in collaboration with Professor Michael Barnsley and Frango Studios, a fractal algorithm is applied to an image that imagines you into nature, transforming yourself through repeated patterning into endless plant creations.
Still, none the wiser? Stand in front of the computer screen on the front desk at Reception and watch the Plant Morphing ‘magic’ unfold!
Other innovative elements include Veronika’s slightly nonsensical imaginary Green Therapy Room, including the traditional therapist’s couch and chair but completely covered in recycled ceramic and glass mosaics for a whimsical twist.
While Nanette works mainly in textile to create beautiful, magical works like Hybrid Forest.
Assembled through reclaimed products of marine debris and constructed fibre art, these structures celebrate transformation in all its stages.
Likewise, Wunderkammer transforms everyday objects and plants into the realm of art. Scientific specimens and art combine as one: an ocean-worn thong, a bird’s wing, human-created detritus morphs with Mother Nature to form a new collection of curios.
Hybrid Greening is showing in the Long Gallery, 14 January – 5 March 2023.