Mantis is a mixed reality project that includes five new photographs and two video sculptures.  

In this speculative future, human presence is felt only in the nostalgic capitalist objects and architecture of the past.  Condos, malls, store facades, computers, led screens, and gardens merge to create an interstitial atmosphere of transformation.    Some of the objects have mutated and assume the shapes of exceptionally resilient natural and animalistic forms.  The AI has focused on a particular insect to achieve a superior sense of sight and mind.

Geoffrey Pugen is an artist experimenting at the intersection of technology and nature through video, photo and
installation. Thematically, Pugen contemplates speculative futures, transhumanism, the impact of nature on society
and conflicts between the virtual and the real. His most recent sculptural work integrates video screen technology into
architectural forms, creating spatially-synced multi-screen installations. His work has been exhibited at the Museum
of Contemporary Canadian Art, Museum of Moving Image in New York, WRO Biennial in Poland, Bienal De La Imagen
En Movimiento, Buenos Aires, Internationale Kurzfilmtage Oberhausen, Germany, Rotterdam Film Festival. He is a
recipient of the K.M Hunter Award for Interdisciplinary Art.

Geoffrey Pugen would like to acknowledge the support of the TAC and OAC.