Jonah King


Jonah King is an interdisciplinary artist exploring human/nonhuman relations and speculative futures. Their multifaceted world-building create immersive experiences to examine how ecological intimacies influence individual and social identity.

About

Film
Immersive
Lecture/Workshop
Performance
Sculpture
Web
Writing

Exhibitions

Image View




Jonah King
Projects:

Virtual Reality Experience & Installation

2024 

Honey Fungus is a sci-fi Virtual Reality installation that invites audiences to expand their sensory connection to the greater ecosystem. A sentient ecological presence—manifested as an omnipresent mycelial entity—guides participants on a journey through an entangled ecology.

Through a series of interactive vignettes inspired by the fungal reproductive cycle, users are invited to shape and transform the virtual environment. As they progress, they encounter spores that speak in poetic passages generated by AI, trained on a unique blend of Smithsonian field research and amateur erotica. In these spaces, the scientific merges with the sensual, unveiling the earth’s queer erotic potential and opening new possibilities for ecological stewardship and mutual care between human and non-human life.

This VR world embraces the idea that each of us possesses more than a singular, isolated body. As scholar Daisy Hildyard suggests, we have a 'second body'—one that exists through our interconnectedness with the world around us.

Completed October 2024


Exhibited as Work In Progress:
Bolivar Gallery, Lexington, Kentucky
Hesse Flatow, Expo Chicago
Myclological Film Festival, SVA Theatre, New York
GBA, Brooklyn
Benton Museum of Art, University of Connecticut, Storrs, CT
Urban Soils Institute, LMCC Arts Center, Governor’s Island, New York
RealMix 2022, Hyphen Hub, Colombia
Moss Arts Center, Virginia Tech, Blacksburg, VA
NEW INC, NewLab, Brooklyn
VISUAL Carlow, Ireland

Producer
Alex Darby, Hybrid.Studio

VR Production
Pariah Interactive

Audio
Reading: Helga Hansen Logan
Sound Design: Frank Sweeney
Vocals: Anna Roberts-Gevalt
Mixing Engineer: Daniel Neumann
Contributing Writer: Sue Huang

Supported by
The Arts Council of Ireland / An Chomhairle Ealaíon
Stevens Institute 
Science Sandbox - Simons Foundation
NEW INC - New Museum

Lower Manhattan Cultural Council




2D Extract of VR Experience


Cyborg Ecologies

Article

2024

In Focus: CGI / Digital Art - Visual Artists’ News Sheet

“ Traditionally, my creative process involved

collaboration with actors and non-actors, drawing on methods from filmmaking and theater 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 ...”


Comissioned by Visual Artist Ireland
Read Full Article
Print Version .pdf

Notes On Intimacy -  Biodesign Challenge

Panel Discussion

2024

"BDC x NEW INC: Notes On Intimacy" panel discussion at the 2024 Biodesign Challenge Summit, alongside Tao Leigh Goffe, Michelle Shofet, and Elaine Young, which took place at Parsons School of Design - The New School and The Museum of Modern Art.

Our conversation centered around the radical potential of intimacy as a form of collectivity that extends beyond human connections to include non-human beings. We explored how this kind of intimacy can challenge and destabilize oppressive social beliefs, opening new pathways for understanding relationships and ecological interdependence.

A significant part of our discussion was dedicated to the role of language in shaping cultural paradigms. We examined how different languages offer unique ways to articulate the human experience and provide diverse answers to fundamental questions about life.

Parsons School of Design, New School
New York⁠, Thursday, June 13th



Hesse Flatow at EXPO Chicago

Fair Booth

2024

Hesse Flatow Gallery returns to Chicago with a two-person presentation featuring paintings and works on paper by Kirsten Deirup paired with a virtual reality film and sculptural work by Jonah King, both addressing how AI technologies expand one’s perception and bodily experience of the greater ecosystem through their works.⁠ Booth 157.

Navy Pier⁠
600 E Grand Ave⁠
Chicago IL 60611⁠

Thursday, April 11 -  ⁠Sunday, April 14 

Images: Installation view, HESSE FLATOW at EXPO Chicago, 2024. Photo: Mikhail Mishin




Hybrid Drift

Geolocated Augmented Reality

2023

Hybrid Drift is a site-specific augmented reality (AR) project that invites the audience to experience the landscape of Itaparica as an extended technological/biological hybrid body.

Photogrammetry scanned organic and human-made objects will be reconfigured into floating beings that are visible to anyone using a smartphone.

Supported by the Sacatar Foundation