Close Encounters with Inner Aliens (2023)
BAD Award winner
Hung Lu Chan & Floris de Lange, Floortje Bouwkamp, Matthias Ekman

Triggered by curiosity, humans tend to imagine aliens in an approach to perceiving the unknown. However, these absurdities are entirely shaped by our preconceptions. Delving into various interpretations of aliens, this project highlights how we visualize otherness by looking inside ourselves. With the means of fMRI and ChatGPT, our imagination of aliens will be explored personally and collectively by applying guided meditation to individuals and an AI. Ultimately, a liminal space that visualizes aliens from both human and artificial inner worlds will be developed, inviting audiences to appreciate others' inner aliens and prompting them to introspect their cognitive biases and perceptions of the unknown.