SHONEE

Garden City (2022)

Location: 2264 Dundas St W, Toronto, ON

Inspired by Peter H. Kahn's concept of technological nature, City Garden exists as a speculative Augmented Reality wildlife preserve. Fusing sound and 3D graphics, City Garden imagines a green space where digital nature contained within its boundless cyber landscape is allowed to flourish and grow wild, remaining undisturbed by humanity for all of eternity. City gardens are locations found within cities which are deemed acceptable for nature to exist, as long as what grows there benefits the humans tending it. Despite city gardens being highly manicured artifacts of nature, these spaces attract many displaced ungovernable non-human citizens still trying to survive in cities, like weeds and pollinating insects. City Garden welcomes these intruders, allowing hungry caterpillars to roam free to eat as much as they can and encouraging plants to grow untamed with the footsteps of each visitor.

Shonee (Bianca Shonee Arroyo) is a Canadian-Costa Rican digital media artist based in Montreal who uses the immersive potential of video and speculative fiction to create artificial life. In the virtual worlds she creates, surreal creatures embody humankind’s objective and narrow misunderstanding of the lives of plants and animals in this time of ecological crisis.

To learn more about Bianca’s experience a part of the Hypercity AR residency, check out her interview with Tom Beedham and Long Winter.