With What We Could Carry (2022) is a multimedia installation inviting participants to engage in a shared ritual of carrying while exploring a custom VR headset experience. The work considers themes of migration, matriarchy, and the dreams of our elders. The virtual world includes community sourced 3D scans of female identifying persons while the installation space includes multiple satchels to carry, a looping projection of previous game play videos, and looping sound from past participant responses.. The project collectively explores the responsibilities we embrace and what we shed as we travel across borders and through time.
The open ended experience offers a self-guided and reflective period of rest from what theorist Byung-Chul Han categorizes as chronic “hyperattention” and resists the seductive pull of contemporary hyperproductivity through an emphasis on physical ritual, silent communication, and symbolic gestures. Participants walk through a seemingly endless landscape filled with monumental figures and explorable caverns with infinite replayability. They carry one of the artist-provided satchels for the duration of their journey and a prompt to imagine the contents of that item. Upon completion, they may write what they imagined themselves carrying and place their note into one of the satchels.
The gamespace was crafted in Unity, with an original environment, sound score, and assets developed through social practice. Thanks to support from a Knight Foundation technology grant and CEC ArtsLink residency, the artist hosted listening sessions with feminist groups in the USA and Armenia considering the notion of physical and psychological “carrying”. Participants shared what items or concepts they have carried from their matrilineage, and what they were ready to discard. The virtual space features participants as part of the landscape, reflecting how their choices provide a foundation for future generations.
With What We Could Carry combines physical ritual, personal memory, and transhistorical narratives using emerging technologies. The virtual space emphasizes self-directed exploration and resists immediate gratification. Like Guy Debord’s dérives, the experience provides a radical opportunity to reconnect with sensation while being stimulated by digital topography. Technology is a partner for personal and collective reflection.
Megan Young’s interdisciplinary practice affirms embodied action, collective listening, and radical archiving as a means to disrupt unjust power structures. She combines a background in media performance and interactive design to create new commissions for ISEA (Hong Kong), Art Souterrain (Montreal), Open Engagement (Chicago), Open Spaces (Armenia), and the Biennial Symposium on Arts and Technology at the Ammerman Center (Connecticut College). Her work has been featured in Hyperallergic, The Atlantic, ArtForum, and on NPR. Recognition includes a Knight Foundation technology grant, CEC ArtsLink residency in Armenia, and two Ohio Arts Council Individual Excellence Awards. Young holds an MFA in Interdisciplinary Art+Media from Columbia College Chicago; BFA in Dance from Ohio University. She is a Visiting Assistant Professor of Digital Art at Indiana University in Bloomington.
The open ended experience offers a self-guided and reflective period of rest from what theorist Byung-Chul Han categorizes as chronic “hyperattention” and resists the seductive pull of contemporary hyperproductivity through an emphasis on physical ritual, silent communication, and symbolic gestures. Participants walk through a seemingly endless landscape filled with monumental figures and explorable caverns with infinite replayability. They carry one of the artist-provided satchels for the duration of their journey and a prompt to imagine the contents of that item. Upon completion, they may write what they imagined themselves carrying and place their note into one of the satchels.
The gamespace was crafted in Unity, with an original environment, sound score, and assets developed through social practice. Thanks to support from a Knight Foundation technology grant and CEC ArtsLink residency, the artist hosted listening sessions with feminist groups in the USA and Armenia considering the notion of physical and psychological “carrying”. Participants shared what items or concepts they have carried from their matrilineage, and what they were ready to discard. The virtual space features participants as part of the landscape, reflecting how their choices provide a foundation for future generations.
With What We Could Carry combines physical ritual, personal memory, and transhistorical narratives using emerging technologies. The virtual space emphasizes self-directed exploration and resists immediate gratification. Like Guy Debord’s dérives, the experience provides a radical opportunity to reconnect with sensation while being stimulated by digital topography. Technology is a partner for personal and collective reflection.
Megan Young’s interdisciplinary practice affirms embodied action, collective listening, and radical archiving as a means to disrupt unjust power structures. She combines a background in media performance and interactive design to create new commissions for ISEA (Hong Kong), Art Souterrain (Montreal), Open Engagement (Chicago), Open Spaces (Armenia), and the Biennial Symposium on Arts and Technology at the Ammerman Center (Connecticut College). Her work has been featured in Hyperallergic, The Atlantic, ArtForum, and on NPR. Recognition includes a Knight Foundation technology grant, CEC ArtsLink residency in Armenia, and two Ohio Arts Council Individual Excellence Awards. Young holds an MFA in Interdisciplinary Art+Media from Columbia College Chicago; BFA in Dance from Ohio University. She is a Visiting Assistant Professor of Digital Art at Indiana University in Bloomington.
