In Dust
Basic information
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Full project title
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Project Description
We are hoping to create a virtual memory-scape using dust as the guiding metaphor for our relationship with the planet and with each other. Using dust’s ubiquitous nature as both an environmental force and a domestic presence, we will create a VR experience where people can input their own audio recollections and listen to other’s audio memories by wandering through a virtual world where each dust cloud tells its story.
Project Region
EU Programme or fund
Description of the project
Summary
“In Dust” has initiated the idea of making a virtual world that can bring people together through sharing their memories in a virtual world. The Dust world is a virtual memory-scape for our relationship with the planet and with each other. Dust is the smallest and most pervasive element of our daily lives and it is the birth and the end of the living things. It reminds us of presence and traces as a physical form. Dust in <In Dust> is a depiction of our idea, relationship, and perspective.
We are hoping to create a virtual memory-scape using dust as the guiding metaphor for our relationship with the planet and with each other. Using dust’s ubiquitous nature as both an environmental force and a domestic presence, we will create a multi-sensory VR experience where people can input their own audio recollections and listen to other’s audio memories by wandering through a virtual world where each dust cloud tells its story. The installation itself would be an immersive and interactive space equipped with a VR headset, recording the user's audio in real-time, providing people with a beyond audio-visual sensory experience. This project is meant to serve as a healing heterotopia, highlighting the role of dust, climate, and our constant interconnectedness in the real world. It is but a zeroing in on a reality that is ours, in which dust accumulates and travels, a powerful actor and witness of human and planetary histories.
Key objectives for sustainability
In modern society we become more exclusive. We only talk to people in the same social circles who share similar education backgrounds, religion, socioeconomic status, or political standpoint. This triggers empathy deficits which cause bigger problems that form thicker walls between different social groups. <In Dust> aims to bring people together and provides a common ground for audiences to actively become a part of the creation of the world. This will give opportunities for people to become more connected to hear what other people from outside of their social bubble say which is essential for building a healthy foundation for society. This co-created world by memory contributors will amplify the beauty of virtuality by guiding to a healthier dialogue with each other. The collected memories can potentially be a source of empathy in the world with disparities.The world will be filled and evolved by the constant input of people's memories, and the memories will be a mechanism for a novel way to communicate and generate discourse that we need in the world we are in now. This Dust World will potentially become a tool of gathering people’s voice, building empathy, and educating people about communities and caring for each other. Moreover, through accumulating their memory in the Dust World, this project will trace collective memories of ourselves which at the same time of individuals. These interlinked memories in different scales become a system itself and the memory of our planet Earth. Dust particles are visualized through the input of the audience and real-time input of memories will generate new force and flow of climate within the world. The nature of the Dust World will represent the fact that there is nothing but the same with the world we live in. Based on United Nations Sustainable Development Goal claims, this project has a huge potential to make our world sustainable and resilient as well as make our society more inclusive and accountable.
Key objectives for aesthetics and quality
We are using dust as a tool to study our physical, temporal, and social relationship with the environment. Dust exists in our reality but refers to a world outside of our own time and space. “In Dust” is, therefore, a heterotopia, one whose existence is meant to highlight our global interconnectedness.
“In Dust” is a reminder that our personal and collective stories are inseparable from the environment. Our installation will be a secluded space equipped with a VR headset in which the physical and virtual environments are sensorially intertwined and co-dependent. In moving through these spaces, users can modify the flow of the virtual dust around them – which will be already partially guided by the direction and speed of the wind flows around the actual installation. The dust is a healing meditative space for reflection and exchange. Users, being actors and witnesses, can pick up dust particles, listen to the audio memories they hold, and add their own, thereby engaging with others’ memories and inscribing themselves in the larger system at play.
“In Dust” functions in cycles of death and rebirth, with increasing chaos in the movement of dust particles (which would be translatable in the physical world by increased airflow) until the world eventually collapses – only to be born again. The audio landscape and virtual environment similarly will become progressively overwhelming, as voices begin to overlap, the general volume increases, and the audio memories begin to decay. At its climax, the dust world will be a visualizing and physicalizing of a world over which control has been lost. When the dust world begins anew, control is re-established, and users find themselves once more in a relationship of equals with the dust world.
We are building a space that is an extension of our reality. A space for exchange, “In Dust” reminds us of the greater network in which we are operating – of the comfort and responsibility that that means.
Key objectives for inclusion
“In Dust” invites people from a variety of backgrounds to partake in a global conversation around memory and the environment. Given its dual nature as a virtual and physical installation, it serves as a multi-sensory platform that appeals to both our minds and our bodies in order to foster our sense of communal embeddedness.
Every human produces about 3.6 kg of dust a year. This dust, on the contrary to global dust flows like that emerging from the Saharan Desert, is not tracked. We do not know what we leave behind. This project aims to track human dust, and, in doing so, considers the weight and impact of every action we have. It is therefore a project meant for all those willing to engage in this discussion, inviting users to pause and reflect on their own life, that of strangers and that of everything that surrounds us.
In his book “We Are the Weather,” Johnathan Foer explores the importance of the individual voice and action in the collective struggle against climate change. Our actions, memory, and the dust we generate, are part of a global flow with collective consequences, a reality that distorts our sense of scale and challenges the boundaries between the individual and the collective. This is highlighted in our project by the interactive essence of our dust world. To survive, to be audible in the dust world without decaying, the memories we leave behind must be listened to and cared for. Otherwise, they will disintegrate, and be nothing more than infinitesimal semi-empty particles – that will eventually be swept away by the brewing dust storm. Actions require care, and care requires every single one of our efforts.
This project is a call for unification and inclusion, meant to showcase and deepen our existing global network. It is a tool for empowerment, a space for every voice to be heard, but also one for radical change. It is a re-purposing of dust as a vehicle for care and awareness, a daily reminder of those around us and of the world we walk in.
Innovative character
In Dust is a virtual space that creates a conversation between users. It is a new form of network, where your memories turn into virtual particles, but still keep the emotional aspect of it.
