25-27 September in Barnsley, South Yorkshire
(W)HOLE – A transmedia project which uses Augmented Reality, 3D sculpting, photogrammetry, soundscapes and collaborative storytelling to explore the hidden life of digital infrastructures. by artist collective Clusterduck which is Co-founded and led by Italian artist Silvia dal Dosso.
ICI London supports (W)HOLE, a cooperative world-building project designed to uncover the often-overlooked world of digital infrastructures. It utilizes various media, languages, and realms to provide participants with the tools necessary to engage with and act upon these hidden systems.
(W)HOLE takes the manhole cover as both symbol and point of entry. These overlooked objects, embedded in the everyday landscape, conceal vast networks of pipes, cables and infrastructures beneath our feet. Much like the digital systems that quietly shape contemporary life, these hidden worlds remain largely unseen. (W)HOLE draws them to the surface, revealing the infrastructures that underpin and organize our daily existence.
The project combines many forms of making and imagining, such as sculpture, sound, Augmented Reality, and 3D models. For Barnsley, (W)HOLE combines six manhole covers located across the town centre with corresponding AR works that reveal the hidden layers of digital infrastructure: Earth – the ground and materials everything is built on; Cloud – big computers that store and move information; City – the streets and buildings around us; Address – the systems that help us find things and people; Interface – the screens and tools we use every day; and User – each of us.
This artwork will be adapted for presentation at AND Festival, taking place in Barnsley, South Yorkshire from the 25th – 27th September 2026, as part of the festival’s curatorial framework exploring infrastructures and hidden networks as contemporary social landscapes.
More info and how to attend HERE
Abandon Normal Devices & AND Festival 2026 is a digital arts and culture organisation, working in the North of England. The festival is a major international digital arts festival exploring the relationship between technology, culture, ecology and society through moving image, immersive media, sound, performance and public discourse. Find out more about AND HERE