Take a seat in a shiny racing chair, get hooked on to an AI-system and take the controller. It’s time to fly off into three dimensions of Spectral Plain. Let's explore and build new cosmologies. Spectral Plain the interactive game-installation strikes down in MU on March 16th from 7:30pm and delves into how we construct a sense of ‘world’. The work is created by designers Guillemette Legrand and Vincent Thornhill. Exploring the capacity for AI and randomized technologies to foster forms of co-creation in- and between humans.

Within the context of gaming technologies, ‘Spectral Plain’ challenges new forms of generative world building that intersect with algorithms and sensing. It confronts earths limited imaginative representation by information technologies. As it offers space via artistic mobilization of said technologies, ‘multiscalar’ and pluralistic imaginations are able to emerge. This culminates in an exploration of the capacity in which AI-integrated game-environments decenter anthropogenic (humanistic?) perspectives. which is done through new symbiotic interrelations of non-human and non-living. 

As the player navigates the game environment, information about their encounters with cosmological signs (‘triangle’, ‘circle’, ‘cross’, ‘square’) are recorded and then processed. The players’ ultimate fate is in the hands of cosmic randomness, but it is their ability to cooperate which will open an interdimensional portal to the ending of the game. After finding their way through the three layers of the game, the journey ends at the flames of a campfire. This is where the previous interactions within the game converge to form a stereoscopic cosmogram.

The research behind Spectral Plain is contextualized by deployment of the 5G network. A global, hyper-efficient mesh of connecting nodes mythologizing our collective imagination of the Earth. These narratives shape our cosmological belief systems, and our ability to envision ourselves as humans in a spectrum of frequencies that scale the planet.

This project is a research initiative led by Guillemette Legrand and Vincent Thornhill, in collaboration with Isaac Clarke, Zach Furniss, Mārcis Lapiņš, Filip Setmanuk, and Jim Zweerts. Spectral Plain was developed with the curatorial and production support of V2_Lab for the Unstable Media, and financial support from Stimuleringsfonds and Cultuur Eindhoven.

The interactive game-installation will open its seat for you at 7:30pm of March 16th in MU. And will be ready for cosmological exploration the entire weekend until March 19th during regular opening hours.

Order your tickets for the opening here.