Prepared by the state-run Adam Mickiewicz Institute (IAM), in collaboration with UK creative studio Anagram, the project was inspired by Lem’s idea to encode information about nuclear-waste dumps in the DNA of plants.
It is another of the Warsaw-based institute’s initiatives to honour the centenary of Lem’s birth this year, all of which show the pertinence of the questions the great author posed to humanity, it said.
Audiences will get the first taste of this immersive journey as part of the Patchlab festival, which is being held in Kraków from October 8 and 10.
Before the end of the month, the project will be also shown at London’s Orleans House Gallery and the IDFA festival in Amsterdam, the institute announced.
Messages to a Post-Human Earth compels us to reflect about to what extent we know the world of plants and whether we perceive what it has to tell us,” IAM’s CEO Barbara Schabowska said.
Lem’s idea to encode information about nuclear-waste dumps in the DNA of plants was formulated in an essay, in response to a query from the United States Human Interference Task Force. In the 1970s, the group was searching for ways to warn posterity about radioactive waste.
May Abdalla and Amy Rose from the UK-based Anagram studio used the concept to create a multi-sense journey through Kraków’s Botanical Garden, with elements of augmented reality.
Prof. Monica Gagliano, an expert in plant communication from Australia’s Southern Cross University, also contributed to the project, according to IAM.
The immersive journey has been designed for pairs and lasts some 45 minutes, IAM also said.
More info: patchlab.pl
(pm/gs)
Source: IAM