Garden for Drowning Descendant by Eva Davidova

Eva Davidova’s interactive, mixed reality work “Garden for Drowning Descendant” is part of the exhibition “Tomorrows: Artists Address Our Uncertain Future” at the Rochester Contemporary Art Center.

Tomorrows: Artists Address Our Uncertain Future brings together artists and collectives who are responding to the societal and ecological uncertainties that lie ahead. The artists included in the exhibition work through a wide range of sentiments and creative positions as they navigate the intersection of art and technology. They also delve into AI and virtual reality, reflecting on the destabilizing potential of new technologies and the allure of immersive environs. As environmental concerns take the spotlight, artists grapple with impending climate catastrophe through various media and different degrees of pessimism and activism.

Tomorrows considers how today’s artists engage with our swiftly changing world to contemplate how and where we go from here. The exhibition features new artworks and installations by Eva Davidova, [phylum] (Carlos Castellanos, Johnny DiBlasi, Bello Bello), Jude Griebel, Eryk Salvaggio, and Sam Van Aken.

About Garden for Drowning Descendant

Garden for Drowning Descendant by Eva Davidova is an experimental, participatory mixed reality work on ecological disaster and interdependency. Based on four distinct dreams on our descendants in their very different worlds, it explores the emergence of collective action from the mixture of individual ones, resulting in a “dance of agencies” between the audience, virtual animals, and performers from the past.

This immersive work uses Computer Vision to sense movement and proximity through depth sensors, and features drone footage from Trinidad by MX Oops, 360° footage from an aerial dance studio, interlinked 3D spaces, Motion Capture by British choreographer Kristen McNally, and particle systems made from elements found in Jane Bennet’s book, Vibrant Matter : stem cells, fish oils, electricity, metal, and trash.

About Eva Davidova

Eva Davidova is an interdisciplinary artist with focus on new media. Her work addresses ecological disaster, interdependency, and the political implications of technology through performative works rooted in the absurd. She questions what we give for granted, and explores possibilities for agency through uncertainty and play. Davidova often deliberately “misuses” technology in order to disturb its acceptance, and that of the prevalent emotional manipulation that both physical and informational architecture exert.

Davidova has exhibited at the Bronx Museum, the Everson Museum, the Albright Knox Museum, MACBA Barcelona, CAAC Sevilla, Instituto Cervantes and La Regenta among others.