Text by CLOT Magazine
As our species takes stock of a still uncontained global pandemic, it has become clear that the entangled web of ecological, economic, and social crises we face demands planetary-scale cooperation. Even with the promise of new technologies enabling real-time simulation, distributed financial systems, and geoengineering, exclusionary and extractive power structures persist — rendering purely technical solutions ineffective. Anything is possible, yet nothing seems to change.
The 7th edition of Gray Area Festival: WORLDING PROTOCOL took place last October from 20 to 26. A festival where speakers and participants explore how to imagine new relational ontologies beyond utopian and fatalist worldviews.
To accompany the Gray Area Festival, curator Wade Wallerstein presents DIORAMA, an immersive virtual exhibition in New Art City that features new media works from artists whose work relies on simulation to engage in a holistic worlding praxis. These thinkers and creators critique the fabric of our reality—the material conditions of our existence, the protocols that define us—and propose new alternative possibilities.
DIORAMA offers a new immersive experience that critiques and expands upon web-ready simulated exhibition formats’ material limitations and affordances. Underwater caves, balmy coastlines, warped starfields, cyberpunk cityscapes, and more converge in a kaleidoscopic panorama of what is, and isn’t, possible.
