Avatar
new-media based performances, 2009-10
Avatar is a new media and performance-based work where the audience is invited to take complete control of their own performer via a video game remote control device. Live performers are transformed into robotic puppets that respond to their user’s instructions and desires. If actors should be treated like cattle, as Hitchcock suggested, then Avatar provides the audience with the opportunity to do so. By remediating the avatar from a state of digital embodiment into a physical body, my project explores the tensions in mixed reality environments and interactions. In this hybrid environment, new codes of engagement must be learned through experimentation and experience.
Avatar 1.0 – Credits:
Performances: Madeleine Jullian, Natalie Mathieson and Emily Nixon
Technical Design: Steve Daniels
Technical Assistance: Leif Parker
Documentation: Allie Caldwell, Mark Laurie, Morris Lum & Jermaine Bagnall
Avatar 2.0 – Credits:
A collaboration with Matthew Williamson
Performances: Madeleine Jullian, Graeme Robinson and Hilary Carroll
Costume Design: Mystica Cooper
Technical Design: Steve Daniels
Technical Assistance: Leif Parker
Documentation: Mark Laurie and Morris Lum
Special Thanks to Alex Snukal at Interaccess
Exhibitions
Status Update. Doris McCarthy Gallery, (co-presentation with Justina M. Barnicke Gallery and Interaccess Electronic Media Arts Centre) University of Toronto-Scarborough. Scarborough, ON.
Documentary Now: (Dis)placements. Lennox Contemporary Gallery. Toronto, ON.
Exhibition Essay
Thompson, Shauna. “Status Update”. exhibition essay. Doris McCarthy Gallery. April 28 – May 19, 2010.
