Shadowpox: The Antibody Politic

The idea behind this initiative is that art/creative research has the potential to foster a more nuanced, evidence-based discourse around vaccines, at the very least by articulating elusive or emotionally charged issues in ways that other forms of communication often cannot. Using an interactive and entertaining medium, Shadowpox: The Antibody Politic is composed of motion-tracked, real-time animated digital effects, body-mapped projections, epidemiological statistics, and science fiction.

The Joint United Nations Programme on HIV and AIDS (UNAIDS), where Showpox was exhibited (see below), describes the experience as follows: "In a dark room, you see a shadow of yourself on a large screen - white lights create spots that arc across the screen and onto your body. It's the deadly Shadowpox trying to infect you. Watching your shadow-self on the screen, you try to sweep the spots off your body. More spots appear and you realize the virus isn't just attacking you, it's attacking everyone around you. What do you do now?" The video game (and an art installation) imagines a deadly new pathogen made of shadows. The game uses live-animated digital effects to projection map viral "shadowpox" onto the players' bodies. In this interactive scenario, participants choose to "Get the Vaccine" or "Risk the Virus", then watch the results of their decision: how many people in an animated population they infect or protect as a result of their decision. The player's final score transforms into an "Infection Collection" or "Protection Collection" of virtual trading cards, bringing to life the 99 neighbours who can be touched by a single vaccine decision. In this way, the population is transformed from an aggregate statistic with a series of detailed individual stories, which illustrates both the individual- and population-level implications of community immunity. At its core, Shadowpox is about making visible the invisible consequences of our choices.

Humphrey and Ulit-Destajo play-tested the Shadowpox story and digital effects in 2016 at a workshop at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art in London, and The Art and Science of Immunization symposium at the University of Toronto. Public exhibitions since have included:

• Public Notice, Robert McLaughlin Gallery, Oshawa, Canada. September 15 2018 - January 13 2019
• <Immune Nations>, UNAIDS, Geneva, Switzerland. May 23 - June 30 2017 - Immune Nations is described by curator Natalie Loveless (University of Alberta) as addressing the issue of vaccines "from a collaborative, interdisciplinary perspective, attentive to the arts and its many roles for advocacy and political intervention."
• The Art and Science of Immunization symposium, Public Health Ontario and Jackman Humanities Institute, University of Toronto, Canada. April 13 2017
• <Immune Nations>, Galleri KiT, Trondheim, Norway. March 13-24 2017

The next incarnation of Humphrey's doctoral research, Shadowpox: A Spark in the Firewall, is a participatory storyworld co-created with young people in Africa, Europe, Asia, and North America in 2019. In this science-fiction scenario, young, healthy volunteers test a breakthrough vaccine at the height of a global pandemic. But their commitment to joining the network of co-immunity is tested, sparking drama from the tensions between feeling and thinking, individual and community, participation and resistance, vigilance and trust.

Immunisation and Vaccines

Shadowpox illustrates "community immunity" (also called herd or co-immunity), the level of vaccination at which a disease can no longer find enough unprotected hosts to spread through a population. For polio, this level is 80%-85%; for measles, it is as high as 95%. Community immunity helps to protect people who cannot get vaccinated, including babies and those with compromised immune systems. This population-level protection is achieved not by the actions of a single person, but by the participation of hundreds of thousands. Yet public participation in co-immunity has been undermined in recent years by a polarised social media debate over the validity of the scientific consensus on the safety and effectiveness of vaccines. Since participation is voluntary, and people are vulnerable to fear and misinformation, vaccination is one of the most complex political dilemmas facing public health.

Shadowpox in particular received a positive review in The Lancet, which said, in part: "Central to is <Immune Nations> is a desire to capture the perspectives of people often sidelined by high-level political discussions." (James Smith, "The art of immunisation", The Lancet, vol 389, June 17 2017)