Artificial Protests: Occupying Multiple Realities

Posthuman Feminist AI Art Projects explores artificial intelligence in social activism and its potential to allow people to engage in mixed-presence protests. Our group utilizes an intelligent design tool in XR (Cross-Reality), as a creative pipeline for non-programmers to collaboratively create protest pieces that will be engaged with physically, and with VR, MR, and AR (virtual, mixed, and augmented reality) technologies. By harnessing facial tracking and machine learning we satisfy our physical desire to “scream with our bodies” as a way to code with one of the rawest forms of self expression we have, transcending both language and culture. Participants who may be separated by distance, ability, or socioeconomic means can be a driving component of this collective experience, connected to and influencing its underlying physical space. Likewise, participant presence in the physical space is essential to the virtual; neither can exist without the other. This project yields new approaches to XR design, considers multiple simultaneous states of embodiment and questions how our identity and agency shift to see the goal of collaborative action.