Art in the Age of Immersion
Wednesday 22 November 2023, 11:15 am — 12:30 pm
— Lawrence Lek: Layering Virtual and Physical Worlds
- Speakers
- Lawrence Lek and Carly Whitefield
- Venues
- Almanac Barcelona
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Lawrence Lek (Artist) and Carly Whitefield (Senior Curator at LAS Art Foundation Berlin) in conversation.
Artist Lawrence Lek crafts speculative scenarios that take the form of CGI films, video games, installations and soundtracks set within a Sinofuturist universe. As part of the LOOP fair, he is presenting the video installation Black Cloud Highway (2023), which forms part of a larger series of works exploring the integration of AI into urban life. In this talk, Lek sits down with curator Carly Whitefield to discuss his approach to worldbuilding in game engines, architectural simulation, machinic perspectives, virtual cinematography, and his layering of the virtual and physical in the context of installation.
Lawrence Lek
- Artist, Participant, Speaker
1982
Lawrence Lek studied at Trinity College, University of Cambridge, the Architectural Association, London, and The Cooper Union, New York, and recently graduated with a PhD from the Royal College of Art in London. Recent solo exhibitions include: Nepenthe (Summer Palace Ruins), QUAD, Derby (2022); Post-Sinofuturism, ZiWU the Bund, Shanghai (2022). Recent group shows, biennales and film festivals include: 5th Kochi-Muziris Biennale, Kochi (2022); Leeum Museum of Art, Seoul (2022); Museum of Contemporary Art Australia, Sydney (2022); donaufestival, Krems (2021); IFFR International Film Festival Rotterdam (2020 and 2018); 17th Venice Architecture Biennale, Venice (2021); Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco | de Young Legion of Honor, San Francisco (2020). Lek has been recognised with the 2017 Jerwood/FVU Award and the 2015 Dazed Emerging Artist Award. In 2021 he was the recipient of both the 4th VH Award Grand Prix and the LACMA 2021 Art + Technology Lab Grant.
Carly Whitefield
- Participant, Speaker
Carly Whitefield is Senior Curator at LAS Art Foundation, Berlin, where she curated Alexandra Daisy Ginsberg: Pollinator Pathmaker LAS Edition (2023–2026), Marianna Simnett: GORGON (2023), and Lawrence Lek: NOX (2023–2024). Formerly, she was Assistant Curator, International Art, at Tate Modern, where she contributed to Anicka Yi’s Hyundai Commission for Turbine Hall, In Love With the World (2021–2022), Dóra Maurer (2019–2021), and BMW Tate Live Exhibition: Ten Days, Six Nights (2017). She also co-curated the Tate Film cinema, installation and performance programmes, realising interdisciplinary projects such as Enmeshed (2022), Nástio Mosquito: No.One.Gives.A.Mosquito’s.Ass.About.Us (2020), Pan Daijing: Tissues (2019), Nkisi: The Spiral (2019), Tony Cokes: Sound Systems (2019) and Lawrence Abu Hamdan: Walled Unwalled (2018), among others.
Whitefield previously worked as Editorial and Research Associate for Oslo Pilot, and has given lectures for MA programmes at the Royal College of Art, Central Saint Martins, London College of Communication and University of Reading. She received a degree in Cultural Studies at McGill University, Montréal, before completing her Master of Research in Art: Moving Image at Central Saint Martins, London.
