LaTurbo Avedon | Id (2015)

Artwork featured in the salon: 'ID' (2015) Single-channel Video with Audio and 3-channel Installation with Audio (Edition 3 +AP, Duration: 03:18)

LaTurbo Avedon is an artist and avatar whose work gives new meaning to the term “born-digital” – as Avedon is a gender-neutral figure that originated in, and works within, virtual spaces. In those spaces, found in video works and animations, they question the role of digital authorship and the boundary between physical and virtual worlds.

Through their “constant state of character creation,” Avedon explores technology’s transformation of personhood. There’s no trace of the artist behind the avatar as Avendon doesn't see a distinction between the two. They say, “My experience and identity is only connected to what I have done online. As a render, I am making my character not much different than most people, sharing pics, making things, and chatting via social media.”

Their latest work “Sittin’ Up in My Room” (2018) is an animated image series whose voyeuristic invitations into Avedon’s bedroom complicate our limited perceptions of what it means to live on the digital plane. Throughout their video and animation work, Avedon takes visual cues from the 3D world of Second Life, having remarked that they spend more time playing video games than surfing the web. Their ongoing project “New Sculpt” uses different game development applications like Unity to propose a non-material way of creating and exhibiting sculpture. Avedon also maintains an active d.rip feed, where they post artwork and interact with followers.

And while Avedon makes their own art, their very existence online – where they curate shows and deejay in virtual clubs – can be seen as an extended performance or a thought-experiment that seeks to provide newfound meaning to the digital world as a valid space in which humans can exist and interact. “While you may not ever meet me walking through the park or on the street somewhere,” they say, “my experiences in ... virtual places are lived and legitimate.”

Avedon curates the file-based exhibition space Panther Modern, and recently participated in the online exhibition SPAMM-SAFARI. They held their first solo exhibition at TRANSFER Gallery in New York, and are currently participating in a group show at the Museum der bildenden Künste (MdbK) in Leipzig. Previously, the artist has shown their work at the School of Art Institute, Chicago, the Los Angeles Center for Digital Art, Haus der elekrtonischen Künste in Basel, and Thomas More Square in London. Avedon has also had solo exhibitions at the online gallery Club Rothko and Sunset at Mt. Gox. In 2016, Avedon was a virtual artist-in-residence at London’s Somerset House.

Despite what may seem as a number of physical constraints, Avedon has managed to be quite vocal about their work, having spoken at the Fotomuseum in Winerthur, the Mapping Festival in Geneva, and Mutek Festival in Montreal.

Artwork courtesy TRANSFER and the artist.

Artist bio written by Arshy Azizi.