Ambiguous Machines, 2024
Augmented Reality Experience, duration variable
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Invisible Dust x Yorkshire Wildlife Trust Commission, Scarborough
Launched in November 2024, the fourth commission in the Wild Eye trail presents an augmented reality (AR) experience by Shezad Dawood in collaboration with Yorkshire-based writer Daisy Hildyard.
Weaving together science, storytelling, myth and local knowledge, Ambiguous Machines, accessed via QR codes at three sites along Scarborough’s seafront, explores the future of UK marine and coastal environments, and envisions a future where sea levels have risen, Scarborough is underwater and humans and marine species have co-evolved to become hybrid.
Developed through dialogue with scientists, conservationists and local community groups, Dawood and Hildyard’s work aims to strengthen understanding of the effects of climate change while raising awareness of the importance of marine conservation efforts.
Ambiguous Machines invites audiences to meet digital characters inspired by real-life local conservationists – including Magnus the Shrimp, Jane the Seaweed Being and Stuart the Post-human Whale – before becoming further immersed in this newly imagined world through an accompanying short fiction entitled The Aquarium from writer Daisy Hildyard.
AR development by Gabriel Stones. Sound by Slowfoam.
The Grand Hotel Scarborough submerged underwater, created using Midjourney by Shezad Dawood Studio.