Auriea Harvey: SITE1
2023
Auriea Harvey, still from SITE1, 2023
In SITE1, a fly-through of a three-dimensional space takes viewers on a journey into an intricate, machinic object resembling a spinning wheel, which gradually evolves into a cave-like environment.
The object is an abstracted star chart and computerized cosmology based on L.O.C.K., a previous work Harvey created as part of the artist duo Tale of Tales. The planetary constellations evoked by the spinning wheel—Mars, Mercury, and Earth itself—function as a chart that draws viewers into a cave. Embedded in it are elements of the characters depicted in Auriea Harvey’s sculpture Ox, which exists in physical form and as a virtual model. Among these characters are Fauna, based on a scan of Harvey’s head, and Minoriea, a futuristic goddess that is half woman, half bull and has been the artist’s avatar in virtual worlds since 2017. The virtual world of SITE1 represents an archaeological dig into the “origin site” of Harvey's characters—an excavation of the universe that the artist is building from mythologies and personal stories. Just as Ox blends boundaries between virtual and tangible forms, SITE1 merges a virtual object and an environment. Viewers can navigate the work by scrolling, or hit the “enter” / “return” key for a continuous scroll.
Auriea Harvey (b. 1971) is an artist producing simulations and sculptures that bridge physical and digital space. After plumbing the depths of net art and video games, she turned her attention to 3D modeling, printing, and mixed reality. Her work consists of sculptures that blend digital and handmade production. Harvey is half of the artist duo Entropy8Zuper! / Tale of Tales / Song of Songs, known for their pioneering works in Internet art, video games, and XR. Harvey’s work is in the permanent collections of the Walker Art Center, SFMoMA, the Lot 555 NFT collection, and Rhizome’s Net Art Anthology. Her videogames and VR works have been shown in exhibitions at venues including the Tinguely Museum, Basel; the Victoria & Albert Museum, London; the New Museum, New York; Brooklyn Academy of Music, New York; and ZKM, Karlsruhe. Harvey is the recipient of a Creative Capital grant and a winner of the Independent Games Festival Nuovo Award. She is represented by bitforms gallery, NYC.
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