The Magic City’s slice of paradise shores, balmy weather, and yes, even bugs, are all a part of what makes this great city what it is. When it comes to creating art with cutting-edge technology through a Miami lens, local artist Felice Grodin is at the helm.

Grodin sat down with PAMM’s teaching artists recently and dove into her inspirations for her augmented reality (AR) exhibition Felice Grodin: Invasive Species, funded by Knight Foundation. From the museum’s architecture to Massive Attack’s album cover for Mezzanine, to Miami experiences, she explains some of her inspirations for the exhibition.

“So as far as the Mezzbug goes, it was interesting cause there’s kind of like a stair, kind of a stepping action [in the Padma and Raj Vattikuti Learning Theatre.] So, I don’t know, we just talked about this idea that maybe, I mean, although most of the pieces are kind of outside within the context of the exterior, that this one piece would be in the building and because, what’s like the least thing you want in a building? Right, a bug.” She jokes, “How Miami is this right? Like everybody has had that experience.”

As the chat continued with our teaching artists, Grodin explained the connection of her work to climate change.

“We’re ground zero here [in Miami,] some would argue, for climate change. And as an artist, you know, what can we do about this, right, if anything,” Grodin says.

With the help of Apple’s augmented reality ARKit platform and Cuseum, Grodin animated her work into digital renderings to conceptually fuse them with the museum’s architecture. Grodin’s second piece debuting at the museum during Miami Art Week, Terrafish, will juxtapose the East Portico’s hanging gardens with the tentacles of a jellyfish.

Grodin says, “One of the things Jen [PAMM Assistant Curator] and I talked in the beginning was this idea that things would evolve potentially. And how might they look, you know, 100 or even 200 years down the road. How might the environment lend itself to an invasive species in a sense.” She explains, “So these two pieces kind of relate to that. One is this idea of the bug being this kind of creature. The other one is this other kind of thing which is this evolution of a jellyfish. The architecture [at PAMM] is so great because we’ve got these beautiful hanging gardens that are incredible. So I’m just kind of playing off what’s already here. That particular piece [Terrafish] is this idea that the jellyfish would kind of come on land and begin to fuse a bit with the architecture.”

Visitors will be able to view her digital works on the PAMM App starting December 5, 2017 through April 21, 2018.