Avatopology

Multi-channel 3D animations, laser cutting acrylic, sculptural objects, custom neon light, digital collaboration, artist zine; Dimensions variable

 

Avatopology is a transdisciplinary project that presents a digitally driven, open-ended, and non-hierarchical collaboration by bypassing the exploitation of digital marketing tools and social media networks. It displays and archives the process of collaborating with digital diasporas found on internet marketplaces, who were commissioned to create digital portraits of myself. These digital creators are based in Indonesia, India, Mexico, Nigeria, Pakistan, and Sri Lanka, among other Global South locations.

 

Besides one reference photograph, I provided no other context in the "service" I requested. The results were an array of digital avatars derived from a single source, but full of unpredictable discrepancies infused with each creator's own subjectivity, locality, personal narrative, and framed by our online communications. Further accompanied by animations, writing, voiceovers, and objects from the multilingual conversations had during the collaborative process, Avatopology becomes a collectively synchronized topology that transforms the diverse human labor network behind it. Each creator's authorship pervades the internet while negating universal categories.

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Avatopology - Volume I Artist Zine was created with the support of Asia Art Archive in America's inaugural Zine Residency and RISCA Opportunity Grant; 2023

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