GVA: Would you agree that machinima has democratized the art making process? Has it lowered the entry barrier for creators of video art, as some critics argue?
Lawrence Lek: By providing a readymade platform for creating digital animations, of course machinima makes it easier to create a certain kind of video art. However the problem with any emerging process in digital art is that the vast majority of artworks lie within a narrow spectrum of expression. When you're learning a new tool or program, you have to rely on default presets. The challenge is to make the democratized tool a personal medium.
GVA: In your artwork Unreal Estate (The Royal Academy is Yours) how and why do you use video game aesthetics?
Lawrence Lek: I wanted to use video game aesthetics to combine fantasy and critique. In Unreal Estate, I was invited to make a new work for an exhibition at the Royal Academy in London. I thought to create something site-specific that also referred to the cultural implications of an elite art institution. In the simplest terms, it would be a fantasy if that was your home. But to be in a position where you could afford to buy the Royal Academy, you would have to be part of a financial elite, capable of buying expensive art but also paranoid about security and getting kidnapped.
GVA: Can you describe your creative process in developing Unreal Estate?
Lawrence Lek: It’s essentially a reconstructed version of the Royal Academy, but modelled as if a Chinese billionaire (or Tony Montana in Scarface) had redecorated it. When constructing the environment, I'm always thinking how it will look cinematically. For example, you have to make an impression at the beginning – in the first wide shot of the courtyard, there's a Lamborghini, Ferrari, and Jeff Koons sculpture. And to end, why not look at your mansion from above, in a helicopter?Also key to the composition is the voiceover by Joni Zhu and soundtrack by Oliver Coates. I actually edited the sound together as a guiding track when I captured the video. The voice was guiding me – I knew I had to be in the gallery, or living room, or basement by a certain time.
GVA: How is Unreal Estate related to the Bonus Levels series?
Lawrence Lek: Unreal Estate is chapter 9 of Bonus Levels, an ongoing series of virtual worlds that create either utopian or dystopian commentaries of reality. Previously, I had worked with public squares, post-industrial areas, and independent project spaces and galleries. So the Royal Academy was the most established institution I had worked with up to that point, and so I wanted to use the opportunity to explore the complex relationships that exist in an institutional context.