Augment

2022

A collaboration between multidisciplinary artist Ellie Niblock and 87 Gallery Explorers, Augment offers a tangible link between the digital and the imaginary. The virtual installation reimagines the Gallery’s front and back gardens. Ellie worked with the gallery explorers, taking workshops and capturing textures from the garden. These textures were incorporated into sculptures which were scanned and extended using game development software to create two computer generated worlds.

In response to the generated outcomes, Niblock presents a new series of bold, tactile sculptures that simulate the garden in an alternate world, breathing unknowable life into the space. The formations are placed in the studio space like foreign objects that have sprouted accidentally. Clues to their origin are found through the QR codes that are built into the space, acting as a host for digitised versions to be experienced. They also activate the garden, blending both worlds together, creating a hybrid space. You can access these worlds from the gallery, or by clicking the link above and below.

Augment explores the intersection between the natural and the artificial, celebrating the similarities they hold. Created using chemical processes, the sculptures are strikingly vibrant, soft, irregular and glossy, like rendered 3D models. The material expands when mixed with a catalyst, growing uncontrollably, and mutating once another ingredient is added. The erratic, swelling shapes reference glitches in the digital world, and mirror natural, growing forms in the physical world. The formations are placed in the gallery like foreign objects that have sprouted accidentally.