A primordial scent of petrichor.
Bone-white empty shells of objects
resting on a sound-absorbing carpet
A door handle, a railing, a chandelier, and a bed
a fresh, cold ozone haze

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Shortlisted for the 2020 Lumen Prize, Eternal Return (2019) is a choreographed multi-sensory XR collaboration between ScanLAB Projects and Lundahl & Seitl.

Eternal Return is a series of artworks: together they form a choreographed, mixed-reality exhibition exploring the future of memory. Memory is the biotech of Eternal Return.

Stromatolites (the second piece in the Eternal Return series) is an encounter with a digital entity modelled after the first form of memory, the single-cell bacteria, the oldest trace of life on earth, predating human experience by 3.7 billion years. Stromatolites become a human’s companions in this speculative fiction about deep-time co-dependence, within the cyclical nature of the universe.

Stromatolites explores the relationship and dependence between digital objects and material substrates by revealing the tight connection between geology, life and digital worlds. It involves VR technologies in friction with: objects, and the human ability to organize perception to build a world via touch, scent, sight and sound. Visitors become witnesses to the capacity of memory within their bodies.

The Eternal Return series is an investigation of virtual reality, not as technology, but as a developing sensibility toward a relationship with surroundings, other life forms, and processes.

The Memor, a novelette, by Malin Zimm is a companion text to the exhibition.

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CREDITS

Eternal Return by Lundahl & Seitl (SWE) and ScanLAB Projects* (UK).

STRP co-production.

The book Eternal Return - The Memor is written by architect and theorist Malin Zimm.

Script collaboration: Malin Zimm.

J. S. Bach’s Fugue in A Minor BWV 543 written for the organ, arranged by Liszt for piano, is performed by Cassie Yukawa-McBurney.

Dramaturgy by Rachel Alexander.

Performers: Pia Nordin, Lena Kimming & Sara Lindström.

* ScanLAB Projects team: Matt Shaw, Max Čelar, Soma Sato, Manuela Mesrie, Reuben Carter, Jacques Pillet, Will Trossell, Dorka Makai.

https://strp.nl/program/eternal-return

https://scanlabprojects.co.uk/

Download a copy of Eternal Return - the Memor by Malin Zimm