Unravelling Unseen & Unheard Narratives
Uncover hidden stories through reconstruction, speculation and vocalisation. Reveal patients‘ and survivors‘ healthcare struggles. Listen to plants communicate through frequencies beyond human hearing. Prioritize microbial experience over human-centric perspectives. Use AI and fictioning to fill gaps in historical knowledge. Go behind the walls of private corporations and gain insights.
In this exhibit, we explore how experimental digital media methods can reveal hidden narratives governed by repositories of official knowledge. Taking the archive, the university, the hospital, the corporation and the scientific institution as sites of exploration, each exhibit interrogates the dynamics of knowledge ownership and visibility in five unique experiential artworks. The goal is to enable a critical dialogue between society, technology and science.
Mammary Mountain sheds light on the harrowing struggles of treatment for breast cancer patients, amplifying unheard voices within healthcare systems. The Materialised Temporality of Dust invites viewers to experience institutional space and time from a microbial perspective, through the notion of the pluriverse. Arquivista AI leverages artificial intelligence to visualize alternative historical narratives for incomplete archives. Seeing Through the Walls of Silicon Valley inverts the surveillant gaze of social media companies through a VR replica of the tech campus, prompting reflection on power dynamics in corporate spaces. Sioscadh challenges traditional authority by exploring alternative botanical knowledge systems through human-machine-plant performance.
Collectively, these experiential artworks aim to liberate captive testimonies and histories, fostering critical dialogue and empowering unheard voices. They envision a possibility where hidden narratives are exposed and positive change prevails.
Royal College of Art (GB)
The Royal College of Art (RCA) is the world’s leading postgraduate art and design university. Within the RCA, the School of Communication interrogates how communication develops new ways of experiencing and interacting with the world. We conceptualize, craft and are storytellers with animation, data visualization, game design, graphic design, illustration, materials, photography, moving image, installation, XR experiences and site-specific work and soundscapes.
Credits
We would like to acknowledge the Dean of the School of Communication, Kerry Curtis, for her unwavering support, and the Heads of Programme for Digital Direction, Tom Simmons and Information Experience Design, Danielle Barrios-O’Neill and the administrative support of Dieudonnee Burrows and her team. The works and collaborations presented here are from the tutors of the Digital Direction and Information Experience Design Programmes.
For Mammary Mountain, we extend our gratitude to collaborators Tara Baoth Mooney and Maf’j Alvarez.
For The Materialised Temporality of Dust we are deeply grateful to Antony Nevin for his continuous, thought-provoking conversations, financial and technical support. We are also grateful to Neil Aldridge for his insightful guidance, creative input and support in developing the soundscape. We would like to thank Luke Holland for technical consulting.
Funding support has been graciously been made by the RCA School of Communication and the RCA Research and Knowledge Exchange department. Funding for the Mammary Mountain was granted by The Arts Council England National Lottery Fund, the Arts Council Ireland Creative Ireland, Leitrum Country Council (Ireland), Creative Heartlands (Ireland) and Root Interactive.