Opening on International Women's Day (8 March) GLOW: Illuminating Innovation seeks to capture and celebrate groundbreaking - and all too often overlooked - advancements in digital creativity by women in technology.
Through the curation and presentation of first of their kind historical works, new digital art commissions and a programme of interactive augmented and virtual reality experiences, GLOW will illuminate and inspire visitors' minds and senses.
The evolution of digital creativity and innovation, led by women
Curated by King's College London Professor of Screen Media, Sarah Atkinson, this multi-sited exhibition across London's Strand Aldwych celebrates historically significant pieces, including the first ever virtual reality documentary Hunger in LA (2012) by Nonny de la Peña - ' the Godmother of VR' - and the first experimentations with virtual and augmented reality eyewear.
Rebecca Allen's Swimmer (1981) one of the original examples of computer animation and the first 3D animated female figure, Peggy Weil's LIPSYNC/SCAN/LOOK (1981) comprised of early interactive animated portraits, and Tamiko Thiel's Travels of Mariko Horo (2006) a mesmerising blend of the virtual world, historical architecture and folklore - all invite audiences to consider the roots and evolution of digital creativity led by women, over the past five decades.
Artefacts behind these digital creations, including prototype headsets, early experiments with haptic interfaces and video documentation of the first VR movie, are exhibited in The Curiosity Cabinet. These collectively showcase the transformative work of ten key emergent media innovators: Rebecca Allen, Donna Cox, Nonny de la Peña, Toni Dove, Claudia Hart, Margaret Minsky, Ellen Sandor, Nicole Stenger, Tamiko Thiel, and Peggy Weil.
New artist commissions
Four brand new commissions from international artists Violeta Ayala, Yarli Allison, Lisa Jamhoury and Rebecca Smith also feature in GLOW*. Their creations include interactive AI-generated portraits, 3D printed animal robots, virtual sculptures, light and sound installations and a webXR clinic, all located inside the exhibition within The Arcade, Bush House and outside on the now pedestrianised Strand Aldwych streetscape.
GLOW experiences
For three days only, between 11-13 March Second Nature, a volumetric lighting and immersive audio installation will take place in St Mary le Strand church. The installation draws directly from the information collected by environmental sensors stations located around the church. This stream of invisible data will be used to create an exquisite, visual aesthetic of abstract visualisations, inspired by systems of nature**. Walking tours, exploring the Strand Aldwych Living Lab Sensor Networks will take place on 12 and 13 March.
Spotlight on VR (various dates) offers 12 incredible VR works, created by leading women in the field and curated by Liz Rosenthal, Curator of Venice Immersive and Venice International Film Festival. Audiences can immerse themselves in innovative approaches to storytelling and experience art like never before, by creating their personalised virtual reality viewing programme.
The first ever VR documentary by Nonny de la Peña, Hunger in LA (2012), recreates a real-life incident at a food bank outside a Church in Los Angeles, using original audio from the incident. 12 years on this experience remains a powerful reminder of the story telling possibilities of VR. The documentary can be viewed (various dates) as part of GLOW.
On 20 March and 18 April Professor Sarah Atkinson will guide visitors through artworks and artefacts across the three main exhibition sites: The Arcade, The Strand Aldwych, and The Curiosity Cabinet. She will discuss the legacies of the artworks, share insights into the creative process, reveal the many untold histories of technological innovation and the incredible women involved.
Angel VR, a multi-award-winning virtual reality immersive experience, will open for one day only on 10 April. A virtual reality exchange between the main character "angel" (a sophisticated warrior in an impossible world) and a single audience member, allows for an intimate and personalised experience between the two, in the historic and atmospheric King's College Chapel.
GLOW: Illuminating Innovation will run from 8 March - 20 April 2024 on London's Strand Aldwych (King's Strand Campus, Strand, London, WC2R 2LS).
The exhibition and bookable experiences are all free. Please book in advance to secure a slot.
Events & Tours
Please book experiences in advance to secure a slot.
(Artist Commission, Rebecca Smith) *
11-13 March
St Mary le Strand Church
Drawing directly from the live environmental data generated by the many sensors that surround the Strand Aldwych space, in this immersive experience, St Mary le Strand church will be transformed through colours, movement, speed, and sound all informed from a large swaths of live data exchange.
12 & 13 March
St Mary le Strand Church
Join walking tours of the Strand Aldwych Living Lab Sensor Networks that help to inform Second Nature
18 March & 20 April
Professor Sarah Atkinson, curator of GLOW, will guide visitors through artworks and artefacts across the three main exhibition sites: The Arcade, The Strand Aldwych, and the Curiosity Cabinet. She will discuss the legacies of the artworks, share insights into the creative process, reveal the many untold histories of technological innovation and the incredible women involved.
VR Experiences
Various Dates
The Arcade, Bush House
The first ever Virtual Reality (VR) documentary, Hunger in LA, created by the 'godmother of VR' Nonny de la Peña, recreates a real-life incident at a food bank outside a Church in Los Angeles, using original audio from the incident. A flagship moment in the history of VR development, Hunger in LA, was first shown at the Sundance Festival in 2012. 12 years on this experience still acts as a powerful reminder of the story telling possibilities of VR.
Various Dates
The Arcade, Bush House
Audiences can immerse themselves in innovative approaches to storytelling and experience art like never before by selecting a personalised virtual reality viewing programme. 12 incredible works, created by leading women in the field have been curated for GLOW by Liz Rosenthal, Curator of Venice Immersive and Venice International Film Festival.
10 April only
The College Chapel, King's College London Strand Campus
Angel VR is a multi-award-winning virtual reality immersive experience between the main character "angel" (a sophisticated warrior in an impossible world) and a single audience member, allowing an intimate and personalised experience between the two.
Angel VR has been developed using motion capture optitrack technology, Unreal and Maya software, Motion Builder and Marvelous Designer, using 3D sound to enhance the artistic experience; and to capture the movement of the dancer and award-winning choreographer Avatâra Ayuso to build her avatar. This is a production by AVA DANCE COMPANY (UK) in partnership with Rose Bruford College (London) with the support of Arts Council England.
New Commissions and Exhibits
(Artist Commission, Violeta Ayala) *
The Arcade, Bush House, and Strand Aldwych
8 March - 20 April
Las Awichas from Violeta Ayala immerses viewers in an interactive experience and a dance of contrasts with acrylic-printed portraits of AI-generated grandmothers, 3D printed animal robots inspired by Nazca lines and knitted pop-culture pieces, connecting ancestral Quechua systems through Augmented Reality (AR).
The installation links eight acrylic-printed AI-generated portraits to respective 3D printed robotic animals. Each creature, from the jaguar to the hummingbird, from the gecko to the llama, is a node within a larger ecosystem of meaning, a part of a whole, that is the evolving cultures of the Andes. Hanging side by side with "las tullmas," each pair of "tullma" represents an Andean chola.
A tablet invites further interaction, with stories woven into its interface such that a glance, touch, or gesture blurs the line between spectator and storyteller. The installation also spills out into the adjacent building of The Arcade, where an external portrait becomes a portal into film futurism. Through a phone or a tablet, the robotic animals leap into the world audience inhabits.
Violeta's work represents the dawn of a new era in physical cinema, one where flat screens are replaced by multidimensional narratives that invite active participation.
L'Entrée (The Opening)
(Artist Commission, Lisa Jamhoury) *
The Arcade, Bush House, and Strand Aldwych
8 March - 20 April
Created by Lisa Jamhoury, L'Entrée delves into the desire to capture, understand, and keep unchanged the vital human body. Equal parts audio poem, 3D-printed sculpture exhibition and augmented reality (AR) experience, L'Entrée reveals a series of virtual sculptures situated in centuries of human movement along the pedestrianised area of Strand Aldwych.
The sculptures, created in a gaming engine with photogrammetry, motion capture, and computational averaging, each perform a virtual 'dance' immerse viewers in their unique forms as spatial sound pulls listeners between the tangible streets of London and the intangible world of Web3/ XR technologies.
(Artist Commission, Yarli Allison) *
The Arcade, Bush House
8 March - 20 April
Yarli Allison's Stem Cell Clinic is a multimedia installation with a digital experience that imagines a speculative future of our city entirely made of Embryonic Stem Cells, harvested from blastocysts in the uterus. The webXR clinic (beta) can be toured on audiences' devices by scanning the map-prints on the installation wall.
Audiences will encounter a stem cell clinic diorama with a bone plinth that was 3D printed and casted; a Lunar lantern featuring a mascot 'Verty' who is the clinic's tour guide; maps, flowcharts, and prints based on hand drawn elements that are then virtually translated into the webXR clinic tour.
Combining the 90s pixel and voxel aesthetics as building blocks for the clinic tour mini game, Yarli pays tribute to the open-source era of the early internet in East Asia which emphasises transparency, community collaboration and accessibility.
Swimmer (1981)
The Arcade, Bush House
8 March - 20 April
Rebecca Allen was one of the first artists to utilise the computer as an artistic tool to make art involving human motion simulation in her exploration of what it means to be human as technology redefines our sense of reality. This is one of the first examples of computer motion and the first 3D animated female figure, using one of the earliest 3D animation programmes.
LIPSYNC/SCAN/LOOK (1981)
The Arcade, Bush House
8 March - 20 April
LIPSYNC/SCAN/LOOK (1981) by Peggy Weil, are interactive animated portraits. The installation featured in GLOW reprises a set activated via keyboard text and a joystick. These demonstrations were the first of their kind, giving the computer a real-time talking, expressive face utilizing a voice synthesizer, eye-tracking and joystick as input.
Travels of Mariko Horo (2006)
The Arcade, Bush House
8 March - 20 April
Tamiko Thiel's interactive 3D virtual reality installation is a mesmerising blend of the virtual world, historical architecture, and folklore, which invites the viewer into a surreal underwater interpretation of Venice, where Eastern and Western iconography and collide and coalesce. A fantasy environment can be explored at the viewers pleasure and peril as Mariko, seeing the exotic and mysterious Occident through her eyes and experiences.
Curiosity Cabinet
171 Strand
8 March - 20 April
The Curiosity Cabinet at 171 Strand is an exhibition space dedicated to the curious, curious people and curious objects created by the Faculty of Arts & Humanities and King's Culture. Within the cabinet is a series of physical and digital objects which tell the stories of the many remarkable discoveries that have been made by women artists and experimenters during their creative process, but which have, in many cases gone unremarked.
The GLOW collection spans the 1980s to 2010s and the objects have been temporally ordered in a timeline to reveal the continued and sustained innovation. The objects include some of the earliest experimentations with Virtual Reality including the first VR movie, the first technique for creating haptic textures, the first virtual reality camera-choreography system, and some of the first Augmented Reality (AR) eyewear.
These exhibits collectively showcase the transformative work of ten key emergent media innovators: Rebecca Allen, Donna Cox, Nonny de la Peña, Toni Dove, Claudia Hart, Margaret Minsky, Ellen Sandor, Nicole Stenger, Tamiko Thiel, and Peggy Weil.
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Accessibility
The Strand Aldwych and The Arcade, Bush House and The Curiosity Cabinet are accessible and step free.
**We regret that at present there is currently no step-free access to St Mary le Strand church. This is an important part of their ongoing restoration and development plan, but currently access to the installation is via the 9 steps of the portico at the west end of the church. Please note that this installation uses haze and flashing lights.
Exhibition Partners
This new exhibition has been led by Professor Sarah Atkinson, Professor of Screen Media. GLOW: Illuminating Innovation is presented by King's Culture with support from King's Digital Lab and the Virtual & Immersive Production Studio at the University of Nottingham. The exhibition is funded by an Arts & Humanities Research Council (AHRC) Research Development & Engagement Fellowship, King's Culture, Faculty of Arts & Humanities, King's Together, King's Climate & Sustainability, Faculty of Natural, Mathematical & Engineering Sciences, Faculty of Social Science & Public Policy, King's Institute for Artificial Intelligence, AHRC Impact Accelerator and the Virtual & Immersive Production Studio at the University of Nottingham.
In this story
Professor of Screen Media
