[Posthuman Wombs]

2022 VR essay
Awards and nominations: VR Art Prize, 3rd prize, 2023
A pregnant posthuman avatar in a marbled bodysuit stands in a violet virtual landscape with pastel plants and a heap of glossy blue objects

VR still

[Posthuman Wombs] is a tender trip into the belly of the pregnant Posthuman.

Here, gender is not binary and nature and technology are not in opposition to one another. Here, pregnancy is technology, and the body is both fiction and reality. [Posthuman Wombs] is the artist's autotheoretical exploration of hosting a child in a non-binary body. It speaks of the desire to find a community in otherness.

The work uses Virtual Reality to propose glitch- & xeno-feminist perspectives in a posthuman age, in which all organisms are understood as interdependent and all bodies and all nature is understood as technologised. It proposes to speculate with pregnancy as a hack that can be applied on all bodies, or that could even be applied outside of the posthuman body.

Three pregnant posthuman avatars stand beneath a dense canopy of glossy violet objects
VR still
A pregnant avatar lies on a membrane-like floor, a glowing translucent belly at its centre, with figures and a sheep in the violet distance
VR still
A translucent artificial womb with a curled figure inside, suspended by tubes against a glossy red background
VR still
Installation view: two visitors wearing VR headsets sit on stools in a pink-lit room hung with printed fabric
Installation view

Trailer

Companion works

Details

  • VR standalone experience
  • Duration: 20 min

Credits

  • Creator, director, script: Anan Fries
  • Co-creator, composition, sound design: Malu Peeters
  • Creative technologist, VR developer: Ambrus Ivanyos
  • Digital performers: Brandy Butler, Anan Fries, Olivia Hyunsin Kim, Ncube as Bibi, Fercha Pombo, Kübra Uzun, Wheelymum
  • Narrator: Anan Fries
  • Costume design: Tra My Nguyen
  • Costume assistant: Anne-Kristin Winzer
  • Costume design Kübra: Kemal Yjlmaz
  • Character animation: Lisa Kaschubat, Manuel Tozzi
  • 3D design: Lisa Kaschubat
  • 3D design Ectobag: Danielle Williams
  • Co-production: HAU Hebbel am Ufer, Kaserne Basel
  • Co-funded by: Netherlands Film Fund, Stimuleringsfonds Creatieve Industrie

Shown at

  • HEK Basel, 2024
  • Unleashed Utopias, VR Art Prize, Haus am Lützowplatz Berlin, 2023 — 3rd prize
  • Konsthall C Stockholm, 2023
  • refresh 5, ZHdK Zürich, 2023
  • Familia Futura, riesa efau Dresden, 2022
  • GIFF Geneva, 2022
  • DOK Leipzig, 2022
  • IDFA DocLab Amsterdam, 2022