‘Leaking Bodies’ is a VR installation that explores the connection between earth’s atmosphere and earthly beings to gain an understanding of the connection these beings share with the atmosphere and with each other through the atmosphere. The leaking bodies of the exhibition's beings and their particles exchange, revealing hidden stories and experiences, giving the visitor the opportunity to grasp a piece of their universal knowledge transfer.

The visitor uses the portal like a VR elevator and is transported to a space at the level of the clouds in the troposphere. In the elevator hangs a cloud being, correlating to the real cloud in the physical exhibition. Out in the exhibition space are three sites where three beings; tree, rock and decaying wood await. Electromagnetic fields of the artificial cloud machine were recorded and transposed to its real locations in the exhibition. Recordings that represent the electromagnetic fields of the other ‘leaking bodies’ are connected to the three sites in VR. If the visitor approaches a being leaking an electromagnetic field into the atmosphere, hidden from the visitors’ senses, it now becomes audible in VR.

Spoken stories reveal a personal connection to the beings in the space; cloud, rock and tree. Through storytelling we evoke memory and experience, questioning whether these are only human abilities or are in fact possessed by all matter.

'Leaking Bodies' is a group project created as part of MoA's Stretching Senses School. Mentors of the project were Jemma Woolmore and Mickey van Olst. Other collaborators were Karolina Żyniewicz and Hugo Larqué. I contributed significantly to this project through research-based conceptualization and ideation. My further responsibilities included the VR development and VR scene building, while also working on elements of sound recording and storytelling.

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‘Leaking Bodies’ was first presented at the finissage of the exhibition 'stretching materialities' at TA T on 4th March 2022. In the course of a three-day festival the project will again be presented on 23.-25. June 2022.

With Karolina Żyniewicz, I hold workshops, where we share the knowledge, established methods, and experience in digital archiving, materiality and virtual reality that we gained from the ‘Leaking Bodies’ project. Through a process of (research-based) storytelling, collecting fieldwork samples, recording with EMF mics, cameras, and mini microscopes we stretch our perspectives on the materiality of objects in our environment. The workshop participants are taught how to plan and implement artistic research, including fieldwork experiences, formulating narration, creating documentation, and designing presentations.  

Blog Entry about “Leaking Bodies”

Blog Entry about Stretching Senses School