Welcome to
CLONE CLINIC
Clone Clinic is a hands-on workshop designed to guide participants through the process of creating virtual clones—digital avatars that can either be controlled directly by their creator or animated with artificial intelligence. This workshop provides an opportunity to explore the boundaries between creator and creation, control and autonomy, as participants experiment with building digital bodies and giving them life.
The inaugural Clone Clinic debuted at the 2023 Future Bodies Symposium, hosted by the New Media Caucus at Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University (Virginia Tech). The symposium convened interdisciplinary research and practice in new media, focusing on the role of bodies in our collective future. It facilitated conversations on how bodies intersect with art, technology, data, ecology, and history, encouraging participants to imagine and instantiate new futures within and beyond established systems.
The workshop invites attendees to engage with the tools and technologies shaping our understanding of identity in virtual spaces, blending technical skill-building with critical reflections on the implications of these new forms of embodiment.
Step 1: Capture Your Body
We begin by using advanced 3D scanning technology to translate the dynamic details of your physical body into a digital form. This step is about precision—capturing every nuance of movement, every curve, every moment of you, and preserving it in data. This isn’t just a scan; it’s the creation of a digital vessel ready for transformation.
Step 3: Animate Your Clone
Now, we decide how your digital body will live. Will you remain the architect of its every move, controlling its actions directly? Or will you step back, breathing autonomy into your creation through artificial intelligence? With AI, your clone begins to act independently, learning, adapting, and evolving. This step invites you to explore the tension between control and release, creator and creation.
Step 2: Build the Framework
Next, we upload your newly digitized body into a game development platform like Unity. Here, we introduce your digital self to its first skeleton—bones that define how it moves and interacts. Through rigging and animation, we create a framework for motion, allowing your clone to bend, stretch, and exist in virtual space. This is where your digital body takes its first steps into becoming more than static.
A Space for Reflection
Throughout the process, we reflect on what it means to create a body that is both of you and separate from you. How does seeing yourself in a digital form shift your understanding of identity? What happens when the boundaries of physical and virtual blur? These reflections form the core of Clone Clinic, transforming it into more than a technical exercise—it’s an exploration of what it means to build new bodies, new forms, and new ways of being.
