Avatar Studies at Amant, Nov. 15
An afternoon of conversations about art, bodies, and digital media
Outland is excited to announce “Avatar Studies: Inquiries into the Digital Medium,” an afternoon of talks presented at Amant in conjunction with Lu Yang’s exhibition “DOKU! DOKU! DOKU!: samsara.exe.”
This event grew out of a conversation about how to deepen engagement with Lu Yang’s work by putting it in the context of other digital art practices. We’re bringing together artists who are thinking about how digital tools shape the images we see and selves we imagine.
Team Rolfes is a virtual performance studio working with motion capture and VR to create hybrid performances that slip between live action and real-time animation, parodying the formats and narratives of contemporary media. Flan Falacci is a game designer who digs into the materiality of digital images, making interactive experiences that explore pop-culture karaoke and the weird poetry that emerges from reusing and misusing assets. Julián Cordero approaches games as vehicles for realist storytelling, using photogrammetry, found drone footage, and speech transcripts to build atmospheric, documentary-adjacent worlds. All of this sits in dialogue—sometimes in harmony, sometimes in productive tension—with Lu Yang’s own use of game engines, motion capture, and AI to explore identity, the body, and its many digital avatars.
Curator and art historian Xin Wang, an expert on Lu Yang’s work, will be in conversation with Team Rolfes for the first talk, titled “Unreal Worlds with Real Bodies in Them.” Curator Julia Kaganskiy will moderate “Readymade Worlds and Found Identities,” a discussion with Falacci and Cordero about how game designers build compelling narratives from appropriated digital materials.
The event takes place Saturday from 2 to 5pm at Amant, at 305 Maujer St. in Brooklyn, followed by a reception. Hope to see you there!