The Fusion: Landscape and Beyond series explores the nexus of nature, urbanization, and artificial intelligence (AI), reimagining “AI Memory” as a participatory archive, where AI transcends from a mere tool to an integral participant in crafting synthetic memories that resonate with the collective cultural narratives. Beginning with “Synthesis of Time and Terrain (V1),” the series juxtaposes traditional Chinese landscapes against AI’s modernity, reflecting on environmental and urban shifts. Utilizing animations and augmented reality generated through advanced self-fine-tuned Stable Diffusion model, it examines the tension between natural beauty and urban expansion. The subsequent phase, “Calligram of Contrast (V2),” introduces an interactive installation merging AI-generated cityscapes with traditional brushworks, invoking a philosophical pursuit of harmony amidst environmental concerns. Through Clip Interrogator technology and infrared tracking sensor, the 2D canvas is transformed into a 3D space that is interactive and intrusive. The finale, “Illuminating Urban Scars (V3),” critically scrutinizes China’s halted urban projects, representing the repercussions of unchecked development and human cost. This trilogy highlights AI’s ability to fuse historical artistry with contemporary issues, positioning “AI Memory” as a critical medium for cultural discourse and digital heritage.

A Womxn Destroyed is a performance that delves into the anger felt by femme or femme-identified individuals who have traversed the spectrum of femme experiences, embracing, trans-forming, or relinquishing this identity while frequently concealing these emotions. Through this virtual performance, I create a space for the expression and exploration of anger. The first performance is a response to The Monologue, Part 2, of Simone de Beauvoir’s 1969 novel The Woman Destroyed. After the first iteration of this performance, other artists will be invited to perform a monologue in their personalized virtual ‘skin’ as a Metahuman. They will create a digital performance as a response to either “The Monologue”, a piece of literature of their choice, or another inspiring text or body of work. Using a set of digital tools, I create a virtual production method using Unreal Engine, Metahumans, biometric data capture from the app Live Link, a microphone, and using Twitch as the distribution platform, as a form of creative expression.

Suon Laulu (Song of the Swamp) is a graphic score, choral performance, and programmed video visualizing and sonifying 160 years of soil data from post-extraction peatland landscapes. This research is part of Re:Peat, a multifaceted eco-art project. In 2019-2020, Anne Yoncha worked with scientists from Natural Resources Institute Finland (Luonnonvarakeskus, or Luke) to study restoration techniques for peatland extraction sites. Using a hyperspectral camera, she accessed data about soil health from soil core samples which we are unable to see with the naked eye.

The piece moves from past to present. Variations in water content, temperature, and level are mapped onto musical staves, the upper staff representing a restored study plot, and the lower, an unrestored plot. Composer Hannah Selin translated these into a choral composition for the Tuira Chamber Choir, inserting 50 human voices into the data translation process, evoking our enmeshment with soil and the non-human species living in it. Accompany-ing is a video programmed by Brian Givens with Processing visual coding language. In it, the false-color hyperspectral camera image is the hidden “seed image”, rear-ranging pixels in the visible image from the stereo micro-scope. The data both obscures and reveals information about our non-human, soil-dwelling neighbors.

Digital Bothy is an immersive 3D experience combining high-definition digital reconstruction with a narrative on the non-reproducibility of place. It is the product of a solo, 15 mile hike to photogrammetrically capture the Allt Scheicheachan bothy, a little stone building tucked away in the remote Scottish Cairngorms open to any traveler in need of shelter. The resulting 3D scan became the centerpiece for a hyperreal, first-person Highland excursion built with Unreal Engine. The final work honors Allt Scheicheachan’s inaccessibility, subverting expectations of a pixel-perfect digital replica. It takes a traveler 3 hours to reach the bothy’s door in real life. In-game, the journey is condensed into 20 seconds. Given the virtual hiker’s minimal effort and the absurdity of shelter in the digital environment, Digital Bothy resists exposing the bothy’s true structure upon their arrival, wobbling and tessellating as they grow closer, until it is an unrecognizable mosaic of fractured data. A field recording of Cairngorm wind blows with growing intensity as the viewer enters the cloud of swirling bothy shards, magnifying the distortion. This project was completed over the course of a year, and evolved into a personal meditation on the tension between digital simulation and the natural world.

The Eternal Ephemeral is a WebXR experience created for PC VR head-mounted displays. Drawing from the conference theme of the Everywhen, it employs variance and repetition across multiple spatial, visual, kinesthetic, and auditory motifs to explore the concept of the collapse of the physical and virtual and the coalescing of multiple temporalities.

From water’s ability to create and sustain life to its impact
on the current global ecological crisis, its significance
cannot be understated. I work with marine biologists who
know how to solve marine ecological problems, but require
a public who cares about our waters to fund their research
projects. In my collaborations with marine biologist,
Tvetan Bachvaroff, and computer programmers we create
projects that engage the public with water, relative
emergence, and the “umwelt” of marine species.
“Deep Star” is a multi-channel video and audio installation
in live conversation with the Chesapeake Bay. In this workin-progress the public is a complicit witness with Bay
water, its patterns, flows, blooms and their significant
influence on marine wildlife. In September, the Fells Point
docks are teeming with scores of ignored bioluminescent
ctenophore jellyfish that have co-developed in form and
movement passively revealing the waters currents. “Deep
Star” creates unique video, animations and sounds from
critters both invisible (microbes) and visible, but are all
often unnoticed.
To deepen the connection of marine forms interweaving
with the complexity of water patterns, the project will
stream in live data from sensors already in the Bay to the
project. I’m working with the MD DNR and a software
engineer, where we transfer the live pH, oxygen,
temperature, saline (salt), chlorophyl (microbes) and
turbidity (clarity) data from sensors already in the Bay to
the project. For example, working specifically with data
from the Inner Harbor, the high oxygen levels will display
a large deepstaria jellyfish. But when the oxygen is low,
the jellyfish becomes small, or if it’s really low or anoxic,
the animation transforms into a plastic bag. In this way,
many aspects of the video, 3d animation, and sound are
affected by temperature, salt conditions, number of critters,
etc. making Deep Star an undulating multi-channel story
that changes over time and seasons.
Related projects discussed here include “What is the Shape
of Water?” (2020), the experiential reality and augmented
reality (AR/XR) “Under the Bay” that includes the
“Chamber of Wonders” installation (2022). These are part
of a series of cross-species artworks aimed at diminishing
human-centered exceptionalism. The marine
collaborations began in 2019 when I was the inaugural
Artist-in-Resident at the Institute for Marine and
Environmental Technology (IMET). There, I met
researcher and marine biologist, Dr. Tsvetan Bachvaroff,
where he and I immediately shared a like-minded vision to
develop a project that exemplified phenomenal
exceptionalisms in micro-organisms.