Hybirds
2023-ongoing, photography, video, augmented reality application and sonic environment
A Material Data Bank for the Post-Anthropocene
A visionary collective shapes Hybirds, object assemblages and digital traces, that preserve the Earth’s material and human stories. Each Hybird becomes a living archive, carrying memory into the post-Anthropocene.
In a future where ecosystems shift and infrastructures outlive their creators, fragments of matter persist as memory. Hybirds proposes a new form of preservation: not of monuments, but of relational material constellations.
Artists︎︎︎
Maria Paneta, Yiouli Tsatsopoulou
What is a Hybird
‘Hybirds’ are objects collected between 2000–2023:
rock, seashell, flower, electronics board, bent metal, clip, yellow wig fragment, broccoli, plastic, a glass container with lid,
arnica cream,
coloured glass, plastic cube, white and yellow velcro, onion roots, metal string, and a ball of dried clay.
Each Hybird is photographed, retouched, and digitally archived in a cache.
But a Hybird is not a container of objects.
It is a relational structure.
Rather than preserving isolated artefacts, Hybirds composes meaningful assemblages: carefully selected configurations of
everyday materials that together form a story. The value lies not in the single item, but in the connections between them.
When objects are detached from their original owners, they acquire an autonomous existence.
Through composition, they transform from personal belongings into gestures of hope addressed to the future.
The Memory Field
The Hybirds are presented as a shifting constellation: merging, dissolving, and re-emerging.
A speculative video compiles their flow into a unified cluster. Objects move in and out of focus, blending into one another like unstable memories.
Individual boundaries dissolve, forming a collective material consciousness.
The sequence is accompanied by a ten-minute soundscape, an improvisation performed using hardware instruments,
expanding the Hybirds into an immersive temporal environment.
Hybirds form an archaeology of the future, accessible through digital media. They embody the human effort to leave a lasting legacy, ensuring that material traces,
knowledge, and culture may be encountered and interpreted by future beings whether descendants, other intelligent species, or extraterrestrial visitors.
From Object to Hybird
Each Hybird undergoes a transformation:
Physical Assemblage
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Photographic Capture
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Digital Retouching
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AI-assisted Metadata
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Augmented Reality Encapsulation
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Platform Archive
Through this process, matter becomes hybrid simultaneously physical and computational.
Artificial intelligence does not merely classify the object.
It extends it, generating speculative narratives that position each Hybird within a possible future archaeology.
AR Experience
Hybirds are encountered through an augmented reality interface.
Rather than enclosed in capsules, each Hybird appears directly in space as a rotating, three-dimensional entity. Users can approach, observe, and move around the object, examining its material textures and form from multiple perspectives.
The AR layer transforms the Hybird into:
︎︎︎A spatial presence
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A digital twin of a physical assemblage
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A memory-object suspended between material and data
As it rotates, the Hybird reveals itself not as a static artifact but as a living configuration of relationships. Its physical origin remains visible, yet its digital existence allows it to persist beyond decay.
The experience does not simulate preservation, it stages encounter.
The archive becomes inhabitable.
Hybirds Platform
