WITH SALT AND ROCKS IN OUR VEINS: Ars Electronica Expanded Animation 2025: support for application.
An art-science intersection, a water and rock-led animated storytelling, combining digital twinning, interactivity and game engine generated landscapes.
An interactive game collapsing the distance between the lithium-led energy transition in the global North and remote natural waterbodies in the Atacama desert. Entering though the perspective of desert water and rocks to reflect on the complexity of decision making at this end-Holocene, where everywhere is intimately and molecular connected, and nowhere is over-the-horizon anymore.
Above: Documentation shorts of gameplay and installation at IMAL, Brussels (June 2024). Playing site 1: Natural saltwater lagoon on Atacama salare.
3D gamified space, digital twin of a natural lagoon Atacama. The game is activated or ‘played’ by a webcrawler programmed to crawl the internet for search terms related to the green energy transition.
Above: Gameplay from site 2; a remote natural salt water lagoon on the Atacama altiplano, at 4000 m above sealevel, in the area released by the Chilean government mid 2024 for future lithium mining; the present and future.
Materials: Projection of game with sound, generated in Unreal Engine running on gaming PC. 2nd screen on metal pole displaying webcrawler hits in realtime. Multiple fibreglass ponds, salt water, ceramics.
