Culture Mix

Mixed-Reality Participatory Art Installation About Genealogy, Belonging, and Our Shared Humanity

Culture Mix is an immersive AR and AI installation that transforms personal genealogy into a living sensory portrait. The work invites participants to step inside a “cultural mixtape” shaped from their ancestral origins and enriched by contributions from people around the world. Using projection mapping, spatial audio, scent, and augmented reality, the installation makes visible and tangible the global mix that forms every human being. By translating data into an embodied experience, Culture Mix dissolves the illusion of separation and reveals our shared genetic and cultural interconnectedness.

CULTURE MIX
IN DEVELOPMENT

  • Launch Date 2026 TBA

  • Culture Mix unfolds as a multisensory environment generated from the visitor’s own genealogical profile. Participants enter a projection-mapped room where imagery derived from their ancestral regions surrounds them on every surface. Spatial audio layers voices, instruments, and environmental textures sourced from global contributors, while scent elements evoke place-based memory and atmosphere.

    Using AR glasses, visitors encounter culturally relevant 3D objects tied to their lineage. These objects can be examined and interacted with, creating a tactile bridge between ancestry, memory, and present experience—for example, a Malian kora appearing in the room and responding when its strings are plucked.

    The experience is deliberately personal yet shareable. Guests may explore alone or invite others to witness the unfolding portrait, turning genealogy into a communal and reflective moment.

    Culture Mix is built collaboratively with its community. Individuals from around the world submit the images, sounds, music, graphics, animations, and scent references that represent their culture. These contributions form the raw materials from which the AI composes each participant’s unique “mixtape.”

    The result is not a static representation but a constantly expanding cultural dataset shaped by many voices. Each portrait is part self and part collective, revealing how deeply interwoven our stories are.

Culture Mix situates genealogy within an artistic, sensory, and communal framework, transforming scientific data into an experience of belonging. By merging participant-generated cultural material with AR, AI, scent, and sound, the work highlights the interconnectedness of all people and reframes ancestry as a creative, shared inheritance. Ultimately, Culture Mix offers a space where personal identity expands into collective awareness, reminding us that our stories are always mixtures—and that this is where our humanity begins.

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