Distorted Constellations will show until the 26th Feb 2023 in Singapore as part of ‘MENTAL: colours of Wellbeing’ Exhibition, which was co-curated by ArtScience Museum and Science Gallery Melbourne and is the last exhibition in ArtScience Museum’s year-long programme of exhibitions and events that are intended to raise awareness and initiate conversations on the importance of mental health and wellbeing. Read more here.

It was selected to be one of 24 interactive exhibits, art projects and large-scale installations by international artists, makers, scientists and designers that reflect a range of perspectives on mental health and ways of being.

Distorted Constellations constructs an immersive sensory environment inspired by the artist Nwando Ebizie’s mythic interpretation of the rare neurological disorder Visual Snow, which causes the person to see an augmented reality of Seurat-like pointillist dots, auras and glowing lines. This Afrofuturist alternate reality is a playground for creative exploration, which draws on immersive technologies and embodied ritual practice. A landscape for transformative encounters. It calls into question how much we can trust our senses through an exploration of atypical perception.

Through Distorted Constellations Ebizie proposed an acceptance of a neuro-diverse spectrum as a radical way to make changes in society, establishing one in which all diversity is allowed space to flourish. She presented us with a visceral new world that draws upon the language of sci-fi and ritualistic practice to further warp and bend reality towards a landscape for new, transformative encounters. From this exploration of atypical perception, she encourages us to question how much we can trust our senses and therefore our understanding of our own environments. She asks us to recognise that our own unique neurology has an implicit effect on how we perceive the world – forming bias and prejudices – and map our place within it.

Distorted Constellations subverted the space it was located in order to go beyond its physical limitations. The electronic score, projections and recursive surfaces helped create this visceral new world by distorting senses of sight, sound, the vestibular sense (perception of body position in space). This process revealed to the audience how distinct each navigation of space is – further emphasising the artist’s call for a celebration and acceptance of individual diversities.

Through Ebizie’s personal quest, we were guided to tap into ritualistic practices of transformative healing that disorient space and present it as an illusion – left with the reminder that; (according to neuroscientists), reality is subjective, perception is fallible and how we experience the world is due to our own specific neurology.

Now showing until the 26th Feb 2023 at ArtScience Museum in Singapore.