UNION is a speculative sci-fi narrative about two beings discovering their ancestral memories through the longing for touch and the embodied rituals practiced in their post-apocalyptic wedding ceremony. 

The story is told through a two-channel film. Two large screens hang from the ceiling facing each other, each telling one side of the story, creating a dialogue between the two characters, who live in isolation under close surveillance until they meet in the cyberworld. Enveloped by the glow emanating from the screens and awash in a carefully choreographed quadraphonic soundscape, the viewer is drawn into the dystopian future of UNION, where GAEA is both the name of the cyberworld and the corporation that runs it. In this world, memory has become the final frontier for extraction, and simulated pleasure the only currency. 

As the story unfolds, the two characters join the rebellion, and come to discover their ancestral memories through touch and ritual. At times a distant witness, at times seemingly one of the characters, the immersive installation implicates the viewer by firmly placing us in the world of UNION, making it impossible to unsee parallels between our world and the speculative future. 

Yet between the two screens sits a 3D-printed sculpture of the two characters locked in intimate embrace, its fine lines evoking vulnerability and the longing for intimacy. The only physical object in this exhibition, the sculpture strikes a hopeful note, gesturing beyond its critique of surveillance capitalism towards the generative possibilities of intimacy, performativity, and presence.

This exhibition is hosted and produced by Digital Arts Resource Centre, and has been on view since September 2. Learn more about UNION .