Lawrence Lek
Lawrence Lek explores the affect of simulated presence through software, hardware, installation, and performance. His practice deals with the indeterminate side of technology: themes of drift, chance, mimicry, vertigo, dystopia, and how they impact our ongoing search for freedom and agency within virtual realms. He uses simulation as a site-specific medium, using it to collage together alternate versions of real places. Constructed using digital fabrication and video game software, his work places the viewer in the role of a wandering observer, encountering existential landscapes through a first-person perspective.
His ongoing project Bonus Levels is a utopian world that unfolds as a virtual novel. Each chapter is an attempt to question, or subvert, the territorial boundaries and symbolic significance of cultural institutions. These include: architectural symbols, historic archives, civic infrastructure, and forgotten monuments. Each level is presented as a video, performance, or physical gaming environment that links the viewer and multiple realities. During exhibitions and performances, he draws from his background in DIY music and industrial fabrication to present these virtual worlds in immersive environments that combine audio, video, and sculpture. The longer the viewer spends in the environment, the more they uncover: hidden zones, concealed objects, and cyclical patterns are …
Lawrence Lek explores the affect of simulated presence through software, hardware, installation, and performance. His practice deals with the indeterminate side of technology: themes of drift, chance, mimicry, vertigo, dystopia, and how they impact our ongoing search for freedom and agency within virtual realms. He uses simulation as a site-specific medium, using it to collage together alternate versions of real places. Constructed using digital fabrication and video game software, his work places the viewer in the role of a wandering observer, encountering existential landscapes through a first-person perspective.
His ongoing project Bonus Levels is a utopian world that unfolds as a virtual novel. Each chapter is an attempt to question, or subvert, the territorial boundaries and symbolic significance of cultural institutions. These include: architectural symbols, historic archives, civic infrastructure, and forgotten monuments. Each level is presented as a video, performance, or physical gaming environment that links the viewer and multiple realities. During exhibitions and performances, he draws from his background in DIY music and industrial fabrication to present these virtual worlds in immersive environments that combine audio, video, and sculpture. The longer the viewer spends in the environment, the more they uncover: hidden zones, concealed objects, and cyclical patterns are revealed through wandering. These are worlds for the flaneur, unveiled in time.
His work has been exhibited in London at Victoria and Albert Museum, The Barbican, and the ICA, among other institutions.
Courtesy of Wysing Arts Centre
