Victoria and Albert Museum, London

18th to 26th September 2021 

Ai-Da participated in the Biomimicry Collection by Auroboros at the V&A Museum as part of the London Design Festival and the museum's Digital Design Weekend. Developed by fashion house Auroboros, the installation brought together fashion, contemporary art and digital technologies to explore new relationships between the physical and virtual worlds.

At the centre of the exhibition was Auroboros' Biomimicry couture gown, worn by Ai-Da. Mimicking natural life cycles, the garment was designed to grow and gradually decompose throughout the exhibition, while its digital counterpart could be experienced through augmented reality. During the installation, Ai-Da created self-portraits as the gown continuously transformed, documenting its changing form and reflecting on ideas of growth, impermanence, sustainability and digital fashion.

The exhibition also marked Ai-Da's first exploration of the emerging metaverse through a new body of artworks created especially for the project. Inspired by the pioneering motion studies of Eadweard Muybridge, the works examined how technological innovation reshapes human perception, much as early photography transformed understandings of movement and vision. The exhibition included paintings on glass and the digital work Egg Imperious, a computer-game-inspired golden egg that questioned ideas of control, power and identity within increasingly immersive virtual environments.

By bringing together AI-generated art, digital fashion, augmented reality and live performance, the collaboration examined how creativity may evolve as physical and virtual experiences become increasingly interconnected. The exhibition marked an important early stage in Ai-Da's continuing exploration of the metaverse, themes that would later be developed more extensively in Leaping into the Metaverse during the 59th Venice Biennale.