04/2023 Update:
Playbour Objects_model kit card_see saw shovel on the wall:

Playbour Objects_model kit card

Playbour Objects_digital object

2022-ongoing

This project is an ongoing series of physical sculptures and digital objects.

In this project, I design and createe a series of "play-labor" sculpture objects by reimagining, recontextualizing, and remixing everyday toys (objects of play) and tools (objects of labor). With this project, I aim to explore the increasingly blurry boundaries between play and labor and investigates the renewed labor structure in late capitalism. Each object in this series is presented in the form of an unassembled plastic model kit card, inviting the audience to imagine the assembly/play process while viewing.

part of duo show Neither Here Nor There with artist Lau Wai
Co-Curated by Elisa Gutiérrez Eriksen and Lydian Stater

09/09/2022 - 10/16/2022

for more info, please visit:
Neither Here Nor There at Lydian Stater

“...In Neither Here Nor There, the artists translate and develop ideas between the digital and physical world to create a hybrid space where connections and disconnections occur between the two. Using references to popular culture, classic cartoons, and Hollywood films, their practices converge in their exploration of the virtual and physical realms, paying special attention to the crossings between worlds and the simultaneities that happen in them. While Xiang references post-humanist architectural ideas, using model kit cards as a way of materializing cultural phenomena (Playbour Objects Model Kit Cards), Lau contests the idea of embodiment and representation using echoes of her own digitized body, fragmented and multiplied, to the point of disappearance(////// rehearsal ).

Two gallery spaces (virtual and physical) echo each other not as a pure repetition, but as parallel lanes that alternate and evolve as they adopt and investigate formal and conceptual languages. Virtual objects stand in for their counterparts in the physical gallery and vice versa. Scarcity can lead to creativity, playfulness, and ingenuity when makers have limited means. Small colored pom-poms adorn a diving suit to create an imitation motion capture outfit, and hand and CNC routed kitcards create a door for their expansion, not only as objects but as suggestions for other interactive relationships and explorations.

The use of humor and the absurd in both their practices establish bridges, not only to create new physical memories with digital tools (or perhaps the other way around), but to engage with a world that is literally and existentially falling apart. From a position of joy and play, the works of Xiang and Lau contest notions of reality, scarcity, and agency, and emphasize the frailty inherent in the relationships between representation and embodiment. Through this, they create a space to understand reality as something that neither exists here or there (wherever that is) but in an amalgamation-location that includes both ourselves and the echoes of our existences.”

(click here for complete press release.)

Physical Gallery

Playbour Objects_model kit card_see saw shovel
Playbour Objects_model kit card_elephant slide

CNC and hand routed MDF, 3D printed PLA
(card stand: caster wheels, foam, cement)
24in x 48in x 1/2in each

Playbour Objects_diagram_see saw shove
Playbour Objects_diagram_elephant slide

Digital drawing printed on paper
24in x 24in each

Digital VR Gallery

to the VR gallery: https://oncyber.io/lydianstater

Playbour Objects_digital object_see shovel saw
Playbour Objects_digital object_elephant slide

new colors released every week throughout the exhibition period on objkt.com and can be viewed in the VR gallery
https://objkt.com/collection/KT1VHNMH5EcwEBDuE7chSkj88gExRQ4AG6K1

09/09/2022
09/17/2022
09/24/2022
10/08/2022
10/15/2022

Playbour Objects_video_see shovel saw_360 view
Playbour Objects_video_see shovel saw_elephant slide_sliding
https://objkt.com/collection/KT1BSuS8u17cfLdWFLS87XYo16Yq2e41Er5n