Martina Menegon^IT

Martina Menegon is an artist, curator, and educator living and working between the cyberspace and Vienna where she is Senior Artist and Lecturer in the Transmedia Art department at the University of Applied Arts Vienna and Head of Extended Reality and Curator for the “Area for Virtual Art“ on behalf of sound: frame.
In her artistic practice, Martina creates intimate and complex assemblages of physical and virtual elements that explore the contemporary self and its hybrid corporeality. Using (and misusing) game engines, algorithms and the virtual, she experiments with new forms of performative and glitched self-portraiture, exploring new simulated fluid identities and creating uncanny, interactive and disorienting experiences that become perceivable despite their virtual nature.

I'm sorry I made you feel that way. extended
Virtual Sculpture, Augmented Reality
2023

“I’m sorry I made you feel that way. extended” is an iteration specifically created for digital, online and hybrid spaces of the homonymous interactive installation.
The interactive installation links an artificial avatar generated via Machine Learning AI with the artist's personal biometric data collected daily via a wearable smart ring device. The physical body state - specifically in connection to stress and tiredness - has an immediate and direct impact on its virtual extension. When physical bodily needs are neglected and fatigue or stress sets in, the AI self-body deteriorates, exhibiting fragmented and abstract behavior and making interactions increasingly challenging.
In “I’m sorry I made you feel that way. extended”, the Augmented fragments are created by taking screenshots of a real time interaction with the AI avatar at different days and states, and using AI tools to generate new hybrid 3D self-bodies from two dimensional ones.
In linking very personal biometric data to an AI generated avatar, “I'm sorry I made you feel that way” and the .extended augmented artefacts draw attention to our hybrid corporeality and how we can foster care both offline and, by extent, online. This intimate and intricate bond creates a new sense of responsibility for our virtual extensions and nurtures a unique emphasis on self-care that extends beyond our physicality.