Replica, Avatar, Doppelgänger

24 Nov 2023-25 Feb 2024

The exhibition's lobby view, 2023, video game. Credit: CapeLab

Overview

An online exhibition that delves into the continuously shifting and multi-faceted psychological landscapes of individuals transformed by the digital world.

The initiator of the CapeLab, Greis Wenwen Zhao, has invited eight artists - Xun Chen, Freddie Churchill, Hyemin Gil, Xanthe Elizabeth Horner, David Koh, Laurie Martin, Jiao Shi, and Yichun Yao - to response the ongoing reality by creating eight digital game spaces using their own cell phones. As players meander through these cyber fantasies, engaging in real-time interactions, a captivating synchronicity unfolds.

Sociologist Eva Illouz introduced the concept of emotional capital, which has now become a linchpin in the market economy. Emotions serve as the backdrop for both production and consumption, seamlessly woven into evaluative frameworks that continually shape our perception of self. Fuelled by the ever-expanding influence of internet technology, emotional capital extends its reach into uncharted territories, reshaping notions of self and others through various configurations.

Emerging from the infinite game of self, Replica, Avatar, and Doppelgänger continuously converge, shaping a mesmerising imaginary land that blurs the boundary between the virtual and reality, redefining the very essence of self through an interplay of arrangements and combinations.

*This is CapeLab’s independent nomadic project on the gaming platform. 

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