Graham Wakefield

The Alice Lab's interdisciplinary research-creation applies a deep commitment to the open-endedness of computation as an art material toward technologies of biomorphic intelligence within immersive mixed realities. It also builds upon the vision of VR, by its pioneer Jaron Lanier, as a medium of collective improvisation. We are focused on endogenous worlds, co-constructed from within, enacted with whole bodies, and populated by more responsive, curious, and playful behaviours, to share a different conception of the cohabitation of human and artificial beings. The invitation is to become part of an alien ecosystem rich in networks of complex feedback, but not as the central subject. Although these worlds are computational, we draw our inspiration from the sense of open-ended continuation and the aesthetic integration of playful wonder with the tension of the unfamiliar recalled from childhood explorations in nature. We believe computation is not intrinsically utilitarian, nor in opposition to nature; we see it instead as a material means to plunge even more deeply into what nature is, and find our place within it.