Jonah King
VAI Member
For over a decade, I have delved into the intersection of science, technology, and our evolving relationship with nature. As a digital media artist and filmmaker, my work encompasses writing, performance, and education. These diverse approaches allow me to challenge and reconsider the anthropocentric views that often dominate ecological discussions.
Traditionally, my creative process involved collaboration with actors and non-actors, drawing on methods from filmmaking and theatre that were collectively devised. However, the constraints imposed by the Covid-19 lockdown forced a shift in my practice. Unable to engage in physical collaborations, I turned to 3D software to simulate my production model. This transition led me to explore artificial intelligence, virtual reality, motion capture, and digital avatars – emerging technologies that offered new dimensions for my work.
At the time, I was very inspired by Donna Haraway’s 1985 essay, A Cyborg Manifesto, which argues for a rejection of boundaries between human, animal, and machine. I was drawn to these new artistic tools as a method of reflecting an extended ecological body in the digital realm in a way that mirrors Haraway’s ideas and my own explorations throughout my practice to date.
This thinking led to a major VR project called Honey Fungus (2021-ongoing) – an eco-erotic, sci-fi, VR experience derived from an AI-generated amalgamation of Smithsonian field research and amateur erotica. The project includes a narrative led by a queer sentient ecological being, manifested as an omnipresent mycelial entity, guiding the audience through an entangled ecology to uncover the orgasmic potential of soil and weather systems.
I incorporated ideas around body transfer experiences in virtual reality, which I encountered through research taking place in Barcelona University’s psychology department, that demonstrated how quickly subjects adapt to the augmentation of their body’s form. I used Unreal Engine game development software to build immersive environments and invited collaborators to contribute text and audio. I developed a process to mimic mycelium growth in 3D – a digital hand-drawing technique using a pen-tablet and the open-source 3D software, Blender. I have been 3D printing these drawings and incorporating them into a new body of sculpture.
The first iteration of Honey Fungus was presented at VISUAL Carlow’s ‘Speech Sounds’ exhibition in 2022. I am now completing the final version, which includes four chapters inspired by the fungal reproduction cycle. In this immersive journey, viewers descend the stem of a mushroom into the mycelium networks, interact with spores that communicate with them, expand fungal hyphae through bodily movements, and finally, are launched into the sky, where they disperse spores and seed rain.
Developing Honey Fungus has revealed that immersive technology offers a distinct experience from traditional video. In VR, time feels different, and attention spans are shorter. Unlike traditional video, where framing and editing direct the viewer’s focus, VR demands subtle guidance through sound, colour, and movement. This approach draws more from practical magic than cinema, emphasising interaction over mere immersion.
Transitioning from filmmaking to VR has deepened my engagement with the audience, providing a profoundly embodied experience of the concepts I have explored throughout my career. Remarkably, 57% of our cellular mass is not human. We exist within a complex web of macrobiotic interconnection. I hope Honey Fungus encourages viewers to reconsider where one body ends and another begins and, through virtual reality, embrace the idea of a ‘second body’ that connects us all.
Jonah King is an interdisciplinary artist and educator working between Dublin and Brooklyn.
jonahking.com