Edifice II

Edifice II’ (2021) is situated in an art and animation practice that embraces 3D computer animation to explore themes and tensions around nature and culture, and conceptions of the utopian and the dystopian, through the rendering of often complex digital ecosystems. The term ‘edifice’ can refer a long-established complex system of beliefs, a complicated abstract structure that can be difficult to challenge or penetrate. In this work homogeneous human figures appear as often precariously placed performers, performing ritual-like scenarios, engaged in Sisyphean tasks, or unspecified debates or arguments. The individual is collapsed into multiple uncanny digital doppelgangers, placed in uncertain environments, simulating some kind of life, often without obvious purpose. Here the loop is embraced as a narrative strategy, a narrative where there is motion but not necessarily progression. The loop allows for the paradoxical expression of a sense of motion and activity which is also profoundly inert and arrested.

Gregory Bennett (NZ)
Gregory Bennett is an Aotearoa/New Zealand-born and based digital artist who explores conceptions of the utopian and dystopian through representations of the multiplied digital body. He utilises the medium of 3D animation as his primary creative tool in a creative practice which encompasses video, motion capture, projection mapping, interactive media and virtual reality. His works are exhibited as projection or screen-based work in art galleries and large-scale outdoor public venues, as online work, or as part of curated screening programmes and festivals. Bennett’s work has been exhibited internationally including in the USA, Hong Kong, China, Australia, and Europe. He is currently Head of Department for Digital Design and Visual Arts at the Auckland University of Technology School of Art and Design.