Cloud Forest
Queer Technology curated by Elliot Anderson
July 21 – September 2, 2018
Berkeley Art Center – 1275 Walnut Street Berkeley, CA
What are the political, economic and social ramifications of a cultural bias inscribed in the technologies we live and interact with everyday?
We are told that these technologies are neutral and transparent, designed to satisfy each individual’s desires. What if those desires are outside the norms encoded in software, hardware and delivery systems?
Queer Technology responds to these questions and others by inviting Bay Area LGBTQ artists to critique the norms and values assumed by the techno-sphere. Artists Rudy Lemcke, Colleen Jenning, Kara Stone, Lark VCR, and Aaron Reed create games, augmented virtual reality artworks, sound and music, sculpture, internet-based, video and performance, exposing us to other possibilities.
CLOUD FOREST was created as an immersive environment for the exhibition Queer Technology at the Berkeley Art Center. There is no “winning” strategy for the game play. The user encounters light creatures that inhabit the space and gain an insight of the world they have created and inhabit. In a similar thinking process as that of the City of the Future / Solaris piece that I developed several years earlier – I’m interested in the encounter with the unknown and how we, over time and with repeated experience develop a (language) system of knowing and understanding.
CLOUD FOREST – ANNUNCIATION game play excerpt