Gelora: Embodied Alienation

Abstract

Gelora: Embodied Alienation is an augmented reality (AR) artwork transforming fallen flowers from California streets into alien hybrid creatures through mobile camera interaction. This work engages SUSTAINAISSANCE, the convergence of sustain to preserve the ability for action with naissance as giving birth, reimagining our fundamental energies to circulate through technological transformation. Participants perform four-phase elemental rituals based on East Asian cosmology, gathering scattered forces to resuscitate Gelora, an alien-hybrid being embodying the artist's diaspora displacement. The emotional dimension manifests through uncanny valley experiences where participants confront simultaneous attraction and repulsion toward hybrid creatures resembling human anatomy yet remaining fundamentally other. Expression emerges through embodied gestures: bending to scan, dragging elemental dots, waiting for emergence that mirror the artist's original scanning rituals with silica gels. Identity exploration occurs through the artist's experience as a legal "alien" in California, transferring feelings of displacement into technological encounters that transform estrangement into connection. The work demonstrates how present awareness through camera-mediated interaction connects to speculative futures, proposing that alienation serves as a renewable resource for posthuman kinship rather than isolation.