This app was originally an integrated part of a hybrid realities exhibition as part of ISEA 2011 in Istanbul, Turkey and was commissioned by ACVA - The Australian Centre for Virtual Art.
The Institute For Advanced Augmentiform Development and Release consists of virtual and augmented realities that are dynamically linked through live interactions and data exchange. The project nurtures a unique eco system that exists in parallel to our own, but that ultimately depends upon the landscape and inhabitants of the physical world for its own survival. Based upon a poetic and playful – yet ultimately conceptually enlightening – interpretation of Platonic cosmology the artists provide the raw material and initial conditions for augmentiform life to come into existence within the multi user virtual environment. Viewers from our own physical environment are invited to interact with these raw materials and become a vector of selection in bringing together various forms within a crucible of life, where logic based upon the augmentiforms own virtual existence comes into play. A route out of the virtual into the in-between space of the augmented is then provided and again physical viewers are invited to follow and nurture the creatures they have helped bring to life, until they are strong enough to survive alone. The creatures make their own way through the streets of Istanbul seeking out a site suited to their own individual qualities, and it is only then that they evolve to their ultimate life stage and will feed raw materials back to the virtual crucible of life.