Lauren Warrington, Somewhere in Mid-hyperspace


Somewhere in Mid-hyperspace uses expanded reality to explore the connection between material and digital afterlives. As the deceased become eternalized, preserved by a social media presence, I feel their virtual spaces begin to take on an uncanny aura, blurring the boundaries between the corporeal and the virtual.

Despite their semi-accurate representations, I find these profiles to offer solace and comfort, and over time, I have developed an attachment to these sites, using them for visitation and mourning. For myself, a parallel emerges between the symbols of the virtual and physical.  It feels as if objects from the physical world are transcendent connectors to those I have lost; the most frequent symbols are prairie hares, representing the spirit of lost loved ones.  

Somewhere in Mid-hyperspace was a part of A Phoshphene Rifts curated by Sameen Mahboubi and Philip Leonard Ocampo of Hearth. The exibition took place along Dundas Street West in Toronto as a part of VECTOR 2024. The documentation above was taken during the course of the activation. 

Text by Hearth: Exploring augmented reality’s ability to expand upon physical perceptions of the real world with objects and assets only perceivable through a digital medium, “A phosphene rifts” explores the mutant materiality and particular tangibilities in the spontaneous creation unique to AR. Rather than bridging, could probing the gap between the corporeal world and the ‘virtual’ allow the botanic and animal to tap into a zone outside of linear spacetime? There are rifts to be deepend in what we make of the ‘real’ world, where moments of curiosity, grief, survival, and healing suddenly emerge. Here, the light of these phenomena is interpreted through the lenses of our trusty smartphones before entering our eyes.


Lauren Warrington

laurenwarrington@gmail.com
lauren0_o
CV

Projects:
On Tracing Memory 
Somewhere in Mid-hyperspace
Inside Elsewhere ˚ ʚÏɞ ˚
Her Biomorphic Bacterial Babies 
Ancient Plains


Site is under construction, more is coming soon!  



Lauren Warrington is an artist and researcher living between Saskatoon and Toronto, who works with digital and physical space. Her practice is grounded in her experiences as a “mixed-race” Chinese Canadian on the prairies and engages the complexities of how cultural memory is created and the possibilities of its recontextualization through digital space and physical forms. She is interested in how technological and material systems can articulate diasporic subjectivities, functioning as repositories and mediums through which identity is negotiated and expressed. 

Lauren is also a founding member of Biofeedback Collective, a three member artist collective focused on creating programming for underrepresented and emerging artists.