«Like a Ray in Search of its Mirror» is about the emergence of a new understanding of interconnectedness. The art series The Future of Demonstration engages with vectors of mobilization in each of its episodes. «Like a Ray in Search of its Mirror» does so by tracing emotions and forms of appreciation that encourage more-than-human awareness and ecological solidarity.

We resist the spread of dystopian forces. We counter their repressive alienation with polyphonic assemblages. We embrace reciprocal alienation as concrete reality, for out of conflict arises the potential for symbiotic affiliations that afford our re-entanglement with planetary matter and its animate world.

What we aim for is an artistic-ecological practice to demonstrate synergies between all dimensions of life and matter. What we call our artist-as-collective is a material composition to activate sensing and sense-making as modes of resolution. At the same time, it is our more-than-human association to explore the resourceful potency of our myriad ecological, social, cultural, and technological relationships.

We – diverse genders, species, and compounds – come together from different strata, continents, and ecosystems. Among our voices are plants, fungi, microbes, animals, inorganic and synthetic matter, tools, technologies, and humans: Giuliana Furci delves into the subterranean networks of mycelium ecosystems. Fahim Amir pursues unruly politics of human-animal relations. The becoming wild of Waldrapp birds is traced by Gordan Savičić and Felix Stalder. Maggie Roberts [0rphan Drift] contemplates the nine brains of the octopus and its wildly alien sensing. Martina De Dominicis and Alberto Cissello [debocs] perform sensations of touch. Agostino Nickl’s neural network constellations mirror our collective imagery. Thomas Nail reconsiders the motion and swerve of matter. Yuka Takahashi performs her point cloud body. Daniela Gandorfer speculates on more-than-human governance. A different sense of planetary space and inhabitability is imagined by Patricia Reed. Soulcat E-Phife, Volkmar Klien and Wientaler Dreigesang compose our common space from sounds and music. and Marian Kaiser takes up threads to weave a tapestry from all our artistic-discursive encounters.

This many worlds spanning artistic interplay is based on a techno-ecological format that revolutionizes the conception and aesthetics of virtual reality. While conventional VR and metaverse projects are invested in artificial 3D worlds and reality simulation, we recast the virtual as an osmotic skin to connect physical and virtual spaces. And we replace VR avatar representation with real-time point cloud streaming of our remote contributors. Hence, the art project is like a membrane through which people and other beings can interact, talk, and perform with each other from wherever they are. And the audience is part of it either at the Forum Frohner or online. After the performance, «Like a Ray in Search of its Mirror» is shown as an exhibition during donaufestival.

The immersive live experience is technically realized by Markus Passecker [head of XR production]. Michael Loizenbauer [livestream] and Marek Šimoník [point cloud live video sharing].

«Like a Ray in Search of its Mirror» is a mixed-reality art project by
Sylvia Eckermann and Gerald Nestler.