Out of Chaos | Push the Button is an interactive media work, presented using an AI/AR platform to create a nonlinear form of storytelling that does not provide answers to challenging subjects - it provokes us to ask ourselves inspiring questions. To experience this “shattered story” the viewer must be curious and engaged, but they are rewarded by a phantasmagoric experience of tumbling emotions and wildly unexpected thrills.

 

On entering the exhibition space (configured to suit the practicalities of each venue) the viewer is greeted by 80 still images, generated using AI and printed at 16”x16”.  Each still is a single “instance” of a larger swarm of story elements, written as 80 poetic text fragments. The images are evocative and mysterious, prompting the viewer to ask “what does this mean?”

 

Each still is a trigger for a unique video clip (80 triggers = 80 videos), which are activated by viewers’ scanning the image using the EyeJack AR app, on their phone or mobile device. Each video has a title, text spoken by an onscreen performer, and a video of stylistically different clips that extend and enhance the text. Once again, the viewer asks “what does this mean?”

 

Since there is no fixed order in which each still must be scanned, the viewer assembles their own version of this “story”, left to decode the significance of each “instance” in relation to the other “instances”, to develop a basis for how the pieces fit together. There is no right or wrong was to experience Out of Chaos – just YOUR way.

 

This platform was prompted by Sanborn’s realization that life is mysterious, experienced as a daily rush of unanswered questions - a chaos that comes close to being disorienting. Thankfully, we benefit from a uniquely human trait called apophenia – the ability to resolve patterns from noise. Without being conscious of this, we turn the inexplicable “instances” of daily life into stories, a narration of our own existence. Because from “instance” to “instance” we are left dangling, wanting to see what’s next, we push ourselves forward, searching for answers, which are different for every viewer.

 

The theme of Out of Chaos | Push the Button is the perilous experience of decision making. All actions have consequences, some beautiful and touching, others tragic and disastrous, but until you push the button, an outcome is indeterminate. In advance, we feel the buzz of anticipation, the bold question of what will happen next. The moment of execution is electrifying, but evanescent. What happens after, is what we must live with, as usually, there is no going back. This forces time, circumstance and occurrence into very close proximity; loading each decision with an emotional force that can made us laugh, cry, scream or shout – but rarely unmoved.

 

Each of the 80 videos is rendered using vastly different techniques and styles; from standard production looks, to fully AI generated sequences, hand drawn animations, processed found footage, and hybrid vignettes. Because you can scan any trigger you want, you have no idea of what you will see, or how it fits into the overall puzzle, or even which piece of the whole you are watching. The effect is addictive, teasing to keep going – to see what’s next.

 

This is a neural net of imagination and connections – each articulating an aspect of the termoil of making a decision.