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Augmented Discomfort (R&D, prospective 2026)
Augmented Discomfort is a new work with a defined concept and framework, currently in research & development.
We are seeking funding and residency opportunities, with production planned for 2026.
Augmented Discomfort is a new work by new media artist Chen Yi and choreographer TingAn Ying, currently in research and development. The project explores hyperreality through the meeting of embodiment and technology. Chen Yi experiments with interactive installations, AR/VR, and holography, while TingAn investigates peripersonal space through choreographic practice. Together, they are shaping a 30-minute performance that invites audiences into a heightened field of perception. We are seeking funding and residency opportunities, with production planned for 2026.
Project Description
A supernumerary limb refers to two related concepts: a medical condition in which a person has extra body parts, such as extra limbs (polymelia) or extra digits (polydactyly), and supernumerary robotic limbs (SRLs), which are non-biological, robotic appendages designed to augment human capabilities. In 2022, an experiment called “The Sixth Finger” involved 30 participants who trained with a robotic finger attached to the side of their hands. Asked to actively “use” the sixth finger, many participants reported that the appendage felt like part of their own body after only a few days.
Unlike the famous Rubber Hand Illusion (1998), which demonstrated the plasticity of body perception through visuo-tactile manipulation, the Sixth Finger experiment rewired the sense of ownership by introducing self-agency into the body schema, despite the presence of obvious artificiality. What fascinates us here is not the alteration of perception, but the transformation of selfhood through revealing a proactive position of embodying the extension and the reintegration of a ‘new self.’
In many ways, digital devices are just like SRLs in our daily lives. From the first computer mouse to smartphones and virtual identities (social media, gaming avatars), we have been inhabiting ‘extensions.’ The inhabitation interfered with the physical and psychological patterns, and reshaped our perception. What constitutes ‘self’ on the digital terrains then? Is the transformation of human subjectivity a metamorphosis, or evidence of the decreasing humanity? Do discomforts, misalignments or even disturbances occur? What if we, just as training our ‘sixth finger,’ engage with the process of embodying it?
These questions led to the initial conception of Augmented Discomfort in response to “Synphysis”—a new word we propose to describe a cyber-organismic hybrid embodiment within post-human society. We explore how augmented limbs recalibrate proprioception, sensory feedback, and especially the complex sense of bodily ownership and identity.
Yi proposes both physical (interactive installations) and virtual (AR/VR/Holography) extensions, and TingAn elaborates with different configurations of embodiment and research the idea of peripersonal space. We’re intrigued by the hybrid embodiment that exposes both fragility and potentiality at the intersection of subjectivity and objectivity, virtualisation and actualisation, between lived flesh and metaphysical being.
Augmented Discomfort is a performance that creates a time-space for audiences to engage with the unfolding of hyperreality. The performer acts as the medium, while the installation serves as a magnifier, enabling audiences to perceive and reflect on their own experiences within the contemporary digital terrains. The project is conceived as a roughly 30-minute presentation.