Mixed Reality (MR) designer Dr. Rewa Wright and sonic composer Simon Howden have been investigating critically challenging methods that suggest various ways to generate new speculative pathways in MR. From quantum imaging, we know that all things are connected, and that humans can no longer be considered the ‘centre’ of the Universe: We are but one small part. Taking a lead from Donna Haraway, Rosi Braidotti and Karan Barad, this research explores data in conjunction with ecology, as an emerging posthuman perspective in design.

The Contact Projects explores a novel method for live performance that combines gestural controllers, living plants and digital augments. The technical network combines:

• -HTC Vive with a Leap Motion
• -MIDI Sprout interface
• -Touch Designer
• -Unity 3D
• -Logic X 

Using this network of various software and hardware devices, data harvested from human bodies as well as from plants, is set in motion with bespoke software to consider the potential of a morphological shift in MR that would expand the field as artistic exploration. In this research, expanding the field as artistic exploration means putting aside the ‘clear window’ paradigm and remaining open to a more sensory experience that problematises human vision yet encourages new connections to emerge, such as digital augments that visibly re-assemble in real-time, and the normally inaudible bio-electrical reactions of living plants.

Key elements of this project have been recognised as innovative by experts in the field, and been included in: The juried selection at the SIGGRAPH Asia Art Gallery 2019 (Contact/Sense, live performance and installation); curated by Kathy Rae Huffman into the ACM SIGGRAPH DAC Show “Digital Power”, Washington, July 2020 (Signaletic Flow 2.0 a short speculative film); and, as invited presentations at several international conferences.