New Undergraduate Researcher joining the Studio to work on Oceanic

We are happy to announce that Gabrielle Serna has been chosen for a fellowship, and will be working with us this quarter on our AR project, Oceanic. Gabrielle is a Mexican, lesbian artist and game designer who creates nostalgic and introspective games about identity and inclusion, and works to center the experiences of queer and trans people of color through her work.

Gabrielle will be making the AR prototype that our project will exist within.  She will be utilizing the Unity AR project template to build the digital environment that will house our text, 3D lidar scans of Natural Bridges, volumetric video capture by Susana Ruiz, as well as our soundscape.

About Oceanic: Oceanic shifts attention from the damage climate change is causing to the life-worlds on land to the unfolding harm of the oceans. Oceanic will use Augmented Reality (AR) to visualize landscapes and aquatic species threatened by climate change, stitching the line from colonization to neoliberalism to racial capitalism through holographic dance performances captured with volumetric video.

Oceanic will present audiences with an experience of the coast of the Pacific Ocean at Natural Bridges State Beach, with an original soundtrack and a series of performances that tell the story of how climate change is a racial justice issue. The creation of this art game will include volumetric video of dance performances by Cynthia Ling Lee, Gerald Casel and micha cárdenas, in collaboration with Susana Ruiz.

Oceanic will present volumetric, or 3-D, video of movement performances, alongside 3-D LIDAR scans of ecotonal coastal environments. These scans include other species who live on the coast, including starfish and sea urchins. Oceanic will also present words from chicana feminist Gloria Anzaldúa, who wrote about this beach to think through solidarity across identities in women of color feminism, such as the former exclusion of trans women, which she tried to undo.