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CHAPTER 1: ENTER CYBERROT
As a child, I lived with a deep-seated fear of my mind. Plagued by anxiety, paranoia, and experiencing hallucinations, and insomnia brought on by stress. Having grown up in an extremely superstitious and "spiritual" family, my conditions worsened. They believed I had a "gift" to see into other planes of reality. Of course, I had no such ability, but rather a severe anxiety disorder leading to chronic disassociation and stress-induced hallucinations. Although this is present knowledge, I turned my fears into fascination at a young age, reading anything and everything I could on consciousness. My mother believed I would become a scientist based on this new interest, unfortunately for her, I turned this obsession into an art practice.
​To understand the core concepts of this project, some definition is required for the conditions I am describing. Anxiety at its core is simply misplaced adrenaline, experiencing a flight response without a present threat. Severe anxiety disorder can have more complex symptoms. In my experience, these are disassociation in the form of derealisation (DR) and depersonalization (DP) and visual, aural, and sensory hallucinations. DR and DP are, respectively, the experience of feeling a 'sense of alienation in relation to one's self and environment... accompanied by a sense of disembodiment' (Gatus et al 2022). But textbook definitions don't cover subjective experiences, it doesn't account for how it feels to be in this state of mind. This is the basis of CYBERROT.
Drawing on Keisuke Suzuki's creation of the 'hallucination machine', simulating visual hallucination effects of psycho-active substances (Suzuki 2020), this project focuses on immersive technology's ability to facilitate (and balance) deep discomfort and immersion, akin to that of a dissociative episode.
The balance between these two states is created by designing uniquely unsettling digital environments paired with rhythmic eerie soundtracks following concepts of 'uncanny play' (Holmes 2010) and facilitating states of liminality. These theories are considered conceptually within the work in building 'worlds within worlds' (Stenner 2021:19) and layered experiences between installation and VR and investigating how audiences can be led into a liminal state of mind through these experiences.
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