Sorn-Lai: Interactive Diorama Experience

Through the month of July 2024 Sorn-Lai had three Portal openings in Knoxville, Tennessee. Each Portal invited audience members to immerse themselves in the post-singularity world of the ‘First Forest’ through an interactive game experience. Each Portal opening occurred at different times and venues around the city of Knoxville.

The interactive exhibition featured a series of 7 large tabletop dioramas showcasing different environments around the first forest and over 50 character inhabitants of Sorn-Lai, all interwoven in an intricate web of narrative and ecology.

Audience members were invited to explore the world of Sorn-Lai at their own pace amidst atmospheric lighting and music. Photo Credit: Dustin Finkelstein

Stories unfolded around the tables (which serve as the game’s environment) are sets of speculative/ cautionary tales regarding contemporary generative, manufacturing, and integrated technologies; the very technologies the installation is made with while the settings themselves are metaphors for societal trends and attitudes. The work is rooted in contemporary trends of ecology and technological accelerationism and serves as a gathering point of provocation around pressing issues concerning our own world.

The exhibition spaces were accompanied by atmospheric ambient music composed by Hudson Tate, a local artist. The tracks capture and describe the dioramas in musical form while not dominating the experience.

In an era where the boundaries between the biological and the technological blur, Sorn-Lai illuminates the profound transformations of our world in the wake of human action and technological advancement. This immersive fiction set, designed to captivate and engage a public audience, delves into the heart of the technosphere and a post-singularity existence, where characters and organisms are no longer distinct entities of nature or machine, but rather mutated amalgams embodying the fusion of bio-techno systems.

Sorn-Lai invites its audience to traverse the First Forest following the outbreak of the Saturophage. Here, the forest breathes not only through the photosynthesis of its flora but also through the pulsating rhythms of bioluminescent data streams. Creatures of the wood, from the Holoflies to the ancient Echowalkers, are marvels of evolutionary and engineered design, showcasing the intricate melding of organic growth and technological integration.

Sha-Ri-Ku residing at the Heart of the Forest. Photo Credit: Eli Johnson

The First Portal Opened at TAPestry event space attached to the Barrelhouse by Gypsy Circus.

The Tribal Court Tabletop Diorama. Photo Credit: Roha

Sorn-Lai with atmospheric lighting in the TAPestry event space on July 5th. Photo Credit: Dustin Finkelstein

The Second Portal opened at Ijams Nature Center for two days as an outdoor experience. Ijams Nature Center

Adventurers exploring the Cos Fringes tabletop diorama at Ijams Nature Center. Photo Credit: Eli Johnson

Adventurers braved the elements and explored Sorn-Lai in the rain on the second day at Ijams. Photo Credit: Roha

Kids were the most active explorers across the lands of the Forest. Photo Credit: Anna G

The Third and Final Portal opened at Remedy Coffee for an extended nighttime showcase.

Atmospheric lighting over the heart of the forest during the Third Portal. Photo Credit: Roha

Roha teaching guests how to play the interactive game with the dioramas during the third portal at Remedy Coffee. Photo Credit: Eli Johnson

Across the three Portal openings a wide audience experienced the world of Sorn-Lai in Knoxville, Tennessee. While this marks the second year of Fable X shows it certainly won’t be the last. Saturophage, Sorn-Lai, and as a hint at the next irl worldbuild :Yiik-Ro-Sha.

In the interim Fable X will be laboring behind the curtain to refine and expand the world and its growing cast of collectables. James Roha

Following the immersive installation’s three Portal openings, the lands of Sorn-Lai were placed in the UTK CoAD Downtown Window gallery for public viewing.

[502 S Gay St, Knoxville, TN] Photo Credit: Roha

As a final push of the Sorn-Lai collectables the character models will be geocached for the ongoing Fable X treasure hunt.

Geocache boxes from the treasure hunt launch following the 2023 Saturophage installation in Bangkok. Photo Credit: Beeba

Artifacts and geocache boxes priming the launch of the treasure hunt’s second wave. Photo Credit: Eli Johnson

Fable X Treasure Hunt access.

Production assisted by Termrak Chaiyawat

Studio Apprentice: Anthony Gonzalez Martinez

3D scanning assistance by Isaac Craker

Additional photos by Emily Lavoll + Katie Hutt