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New art exhibition at Dundee Botanic Garden explores the interconnectedness of people, technology, and nature
The connections between people, the technology we use and the nature that surrounds us will be explored in a new art exhibition at the University of Dundee’s Dundee Botanic Garden.
‘Rhizoma’ is curated by Abertay University academic Hadi Mehrpouya and uses video games technology, sound engineering and AI to explore how people connect with one another, the devices we use, and with the natural environment.
The Botanic Garden’s Green Gallery will be transformed into a sensory black box zone for the immersive experience, blending bespoke audio, visuals and virtual reality curated by Mehrpouya alongside composer Shiori Usui, filmmaker Duncan Nicoll, Abertay academic and VR designer Naman Merchant, designer Jeremie Bretin and Abertay lecturer Jagdeep Ahluwalia.
Visitors will enter a gallery of digital screens, LED lighting and VR headsets bound in nature, interacting with compositions and exploring a world of beautiful and intense transitions.
Underpinned by the theory of interconnectivity, the event will feature sights and sounds from nature recorded at the Botanic Garden and explore how artificial intelligence is changing the ways in which we connect with our surroundings and one another.
Mehrpouya, a lecturer and researcher with Abertay’s Faculty of Design, Informatics and Business, said:
Rhizoma is a collaborative project designed to engage the public with technology and nature and to provoke visitors to think a little more deeply about how we connect with the world around us and the people we interact with. In a world where human and natural connections are increasingly dominated by the technology that we use, there’s a need to pause for thought and better understand the value of those links and how we might improve them.
Kevin Frediani, the Botanic Garden Curator, said:
The role of botanic gardens has moved beyond the provision of a space of exotic plants that can be explored through a nice day’s walk, towards the provision of a canvas that helps explore and prototype solutions that address the ecological challenges of our time. Rhizoma is a welcome collaboration for the Garden, at the interface of all the creative potential that technology, art and science embody, helping us all explore concepts of being human and becoming ecological in an increasingly urban world.
Rhizoma runs at The Green Gallery, University of Dundee Botanic Garden from Saturday 21 September to Wednesday 2 October, open to the public daily from 11am to 2pm.
Find out more information about Rhizoma on the Dundee Botanic Gardens website.
