Get ready to experience the pace of change in the digital world

21 May 2021

Singularity is an immersive Virtual Reality experience inspired by the way in which new inventions are appearing at an ever-increasing rate.

In many classic racing games, users can accelerate by collecting props. This reminded artist Jingjing Shen of the 'Law of Accelerating Returns'; a principle that states that in humanity's relationship with technology, the appearance of a new invention can increase the rate of development exponentially.

Working with an interactive medium is very exciting and challenging for me; it somehow breaks the boundaries between artwork, creator and audience.
Jingjing Shen

Shen combined these two ideas to create 'Singularity'; a Virtual Reality experience which brings to life the changing technological landscape. Set in a forest captured using LIDAR technology, users are invited to discover the many objects and events that people have used to make sense of the new digital world, including 'bluetooth' and the 'information superhighway'. These objects are symbolic of advances in technology, metaphors for the changes taking place across the decades. Each object helps to bring the world to life and adds movement and speed to the gameplay, taking the world from slow, static rigidity to one where everything is in flux.

Shen was eager to use her project to encourage her audience to rethink the relationship between living organisms and inorganic intelligence. While many are threatened by change, she wanted her viewers to consider the benefits as well as the risks that new technology brings.

Her work draws on the writings of technology experts such as Ray Kurzweil, Paul Virilio and Steven Shaviro. The title of the piece echoes the notion of the singularity; a moment when machine intelligence becomes uncontrollable and irreversible.

Download Singularity from Steam
You'll find full instructions on the Steam website.

Jingjing Shen obtained a BA(Hons) at Glasgow School of Art and received an MA from the Royal College of Art. She is currently studying for her PhD at University for the Creative Arts. Her work spans various media in transmedia storytelling, including photography, moving image and virtual reality technologies. In considering the latest achievements of contemporary science and technology, she concentrates on the expansion of the human wealth of aesthetic experience. She was a winner of the Adobe Design Achievement Award in 2014, and was selected as a New Talent in the 2015 Wallpaper* Graduate Directory.

Singularity was commissioned by Screen South and BBC Arts. The executive producers were Jo Nolan and Peter Richardson.

Singularity was created in virtual reality. To view the complete experience you will need:

A high-end PC
Any tethered VR headset.

To find out more about virtual reality - and you how you can get involved in creating Virtual Reality projects - check out this BBC Academy guide to VR.

In 2019, BBC Arts and Arts Council England launched New Creatives - a talent development initiative encouraging artists aged 16-30 to push creative boundaries and reflect their experiences of living in Britain today.

Artists were invited to submit proposals for short films, audio and interactive works. The results reflect the breadth of emerging talent in Britain today.

See more New Creatives projects

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Hairy Hands FM
Experience a legend of Dartmoor brought to life using binaural sound.
Dichotomy
Play the VR game that aims to help people understand what it's like to live with Obsessive Compulsive Disorders.
To Miss the Ending
What if you had to abandon the decimated physical world, and your best chance of survival was to upload your memories to an AI server to reconnect with loved ones?