When TRex Dreams of Mangoes and Figs is an immersive art installation that reimagines waiting in digital spaces as a portal for imagination, and collective dreaming. Inspired by the Google Chrome Dino game that appears during lost internet connections, the installation explores where consciousness drifts during digital "loading states". It invites the audience to enter a phygital landscape that transforms waiting into a playful, reflective experience.
The experience unfolds across two interconnected states, each using experimental, immersive technologies:
1. Loading: In this partially loaded, low-poly world, glitches and movements immerse participants in an "in-between" state, a space of fragmented anticipation.
2. Consciousness: A more vibrant, dream-like world featuring mangos and figs. Mangos and figs challenge the traditional, western landscapes seen in digital environments.
This project reinterprets digital extraction by critically engaging with the hidden infrastructures that shape online experiences, particularly those of waiting, loading, and digital liminality. Every online interaction, including moments of waiting, is connected to physical landscapes where resources are extracted. The project uses the loading state to expose hidden connections, with a sensory experience where glitching visuals and fragmented movements mirror the instability of digital access.
It focuses on the unequal distribution of internet access, particularly in regions affected by the extractive economies of digital industries. While some experience high-speed connections, others are routinely disconnected, left in liminal states of waiting. The presence of mangos and figs challenges the dominance of Western-centric digital environments. These fruits, which thrive in tropical and sub-tropical regions, also serve as subtle references to the extractive histories tied to colonial agriculture mirroring the ways in which data and resources are unevenly extracted.
The installation treats the broken link and the frozen loading screen as meaningful sites of reflection and potential instead of errors. It explores the fragility of digital presence and the physical consequences of digital memory, a reminder that even fleeting moments online are anchored to material infrastructures that corrode, glitch, and decay.
It centers the experience on waiting, a temporal void often erased from our digital narratives. It questions the assumption that digital life is seamless or permanent, and highlights how decay, slowness, and interruption can reveal truths about access, extraction, and imbalance.
By reimagining waiting and anticipation in digital spaces, it creates an opportunity for dreams, imagination and creativity in a subtle protest against technologies grasp on our experiences.
Jazmin and Chris are a duo of artists and researchers based in the UK. Their work spans ethical, emotional, and relational aspects of technology, exploring systems of power and community facilitation.
Jazmin's practice interrogates the historical trajectories of modern technology and critically addresses the nuanced process of simulating culture and identity. Focusing on free and open-source tools, Jazmin crafts participatory digital experiences that challenge power dynamics and hierarchies within cyberspace.
Chris' work examines how emerging technologies influence our experiences and self-perception. Chris has worked with artists like Zach Blas on immersive installations such as Cultus (Arebyte and Secession) and Profundior (Berlin Biennale, Hamburger Bahnhof), installations which interrogate the ethical implications and extractive data practices underlying AI's rapidly advancing emotional intelligence capabilities.
Together, they are dedicated to reimagining traditional narratives in their disciplines, through an open-source, queer BIPOC lens.
Jazmin Morris is a Creative Computing Artist and Educator based in West Yorkshire. Her practice considers the historical trajectories of modern technology and critically speculates on the landscape of human-computer interaction. Using free and open-source tools, Jazmin crafts participatory digital works that challenge power dynamics and hierarchies within cyberspace, with a particular emphasis on the processes of simulating culture and identity. Despite her critical approach, she appreciates the early days of the internet and is a huge fan of the classic gaming icon, Super Mario 64.