EAT Spatial (2019)

E.A.T. Spatial is a gallery format experiment created as a Fused Reality, which in this case – is a tied-to-the-physical-site digital gallery departing from ICIA’s art space on Ringön in Gothenburg, Sweden. This fused format creates a semi-physical site-specific digital experience for the viewers to share views and ambiance. This platform developed by Studio Alight is part of the greater project, E.A.T. hub [Experiments in Art and Technology] which was a collaboration with the Institute of Contemporary Ideas and Art (ICIA). E.A.T. aims to practice across the borders of art and technology where we may discover and learn from these seemingly separate fields while working iteratively and evolving continuously.

This is also, the Studio’s first major attempt to digitally twin something and in this case, we twinned ICIA Art Gallery, which was laid to rest at the end of the year 2020. Since, the closing ICIA, and shortly after, the physical building that housed ICIA [and our long-term studio residency held between 2017- 2020] had burned down clear to the ground. And hence, E.A.T. Spatial is not only a twinning project but also the sole survivor of the space that once was.

E.A.T. Spatial is a space that has had an online international exhibition, MANIPULATIONS (exhibition summary provided below), and became a space to meet for activities such as reading circles, curatorial collective collaborations, artist lectures, etc. It is still open for more activities to this date. It lives on and merely just calls for programming or activation.

To further explain, Studio Alight’s Fused Reality format creates a semi-physical site-specific digital experience for viewers to share views, presence, and ambiance from a distance via the POVer. The POVer, which is short for “Point-of-View-er”, is driveable [with the potential of autonomous powers] machine that live streams, capturing both video and binaural spatial audio of the experience. While the E.A.T Spatial is a platform developed by Studio Alight which is part of the greater project, E.A.T. hub [Experiments in Art and Technology] and builds upon the original 1960s E.A.T. project that enabled collaborations between artists and engineers including artists such Rauschenberg and Swedish engineer Billy Külver. 

More information on E.A.T. Spatial is found on its own website: https://eatspatial.hub.earth