EVENT: GLORIA LÓPEZ CLERIES AND SIVE HAMILTON HELLE (DECEMBER 20 2024 - JANUARY 2 2025)

The Unreal

digital video, color, sound, 13’ 50”, 2019, Spain/Norway

created by Gloria López Cleries and Sive Hamilton Helle

A machinima set within a seemingly alien landscape, The Unreal uses a first-person perspective to guide the viewer through the gleaming surface of an untouched mine. The ambient soundtrack, coupled with a soothing voice-over, cultivates a tranquil atmosphere that invites meditation, while subtly revealing the mineral origins of technology and the extractivist dynamics embedded within it. Employing a practice-based methodology, the artists have harnessed video game software to construct an artificial world and engage with the appropriation of visual and narrative conventions associated with techno-colonialism.

Gloria López Cleries works as an artist, educator and researcher at the intersection of artistic research, visual culture and pedagogy. Originally from Valencia (Spain), López is based in Gothenburg, where she teaches on the MFA Fine Art programme at HDK-Valand. She holds a Master’s in Contemporary Art History and Visual Culture (MNCARS, Madrid), as well as an MFA from HDK-Valand (Gothenburg University). Her work critically engages with neoliberal rhetoric surrounding emotional capitalism, online models of productivity, and the politics of care and collectivity. Through her projects, she challenges the vocabularies and iconographies of online social networks. Her recent work explores the spiritual discourses of materiality and techno-mysticism.

Sive Hamilton Helle is a filmmaker, visual artist, and lecturer based in Oslo. She holds an MFA in Film from HDK-Valand and a BA in Film from the London College of Communication. Hamilton Helle’s works have been screened and exhibited at venues such as The Photographer’s Gallery, Fotomuseum Winterthür and the Göteborg Film Festival. Known for her worldbuilding process, she often combines multiple perspectives and crafts narratives that blur the lines between fiction and reality. Recently, her work has focused on complex landscapes shaped by colonialism and industrial activity.

EVENT: JAKE COURI (FEBRUARY 10 - 23 2023, ONLINE)

A PRECARIOUS NIGHT AT PLUMB POINT

Digital video (2160 × 3840), sound, color, 24’ 04”, 2023, United States

Created by Jake Couri

Sound Design: Kris Force

Environment Artist: Francou Bosch 

Voice Artist: Matthew Curtis

A Precarious Night at Plumb Point finds our lead character positioned at sea, guided by the innate voyeurism hard coded into the world of gaming. Possessed by an internal dialogue, the viewer is presented with an assemblage-like simulation indicative of first-person exploration games, survival adventures, and cinematic trailers. Structurally based on the tragic fate of the first cruise ship intended for pleasure voyages, the SS Prinzessin Victoria Luise reached its unexpected demise the night of December 16th, 1906, after crash landing at Plumb Point Lighthouse. We follow our lead character aboard a modern-day cruise ship as he traverses through a series of environments led by the result of his perceived reality.

Jake Couri’s practice leverages digital space, employing computer-generated characters, environments, and conditions for the viewer to navigate. The artist examines the relationship between digital and physical reality, leaning on the possibility of making sense of the human condition through CGI avatars, cinematic effects, and theatrical sound composition. After completing a BFA in Fine Arts from Syracuse University, Jake Couri moved to San Francisco, where he received his MFA in Fine Arts with honors at California College of the Arts. His work has been shown at Superposition Gallery in Los Angeles, California (2019), Public Records in Brooklyn, New York (2020), and 4Culture in Seattle, Washington State (2021). He completed an artist residency at Anderson Ranch in Snowmass Village, Colorado (2019). He currently lives and works in New York City.

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