Energy Drinks & Bisexual Lighting
Photo: Shirin Barthel © HOLON
WORK DESCRIPTION BY HOLON BERLIN:
HOLON is proud to present Energy Drinks & Bisexual Lighting: A queered take on 90s LAN party culture by Berlin-based 3D artist Harriet Davey in collaboration with UK composer duo snake_case.
This newly commissioned installation for HOLON is a playful unraveling of gendered systems and spaces, both in physical and digital life. Davey’s mythical non-binary avatars host the visitors through virtual dimensions untouched by structural norms. They exist between spatial sound, gaming stations, soft furnishings, and of course, bisexual lighting: a neon pink and blue lighting device used in cinema, to empower bisexuality which is largely underrepresented on-screen. Davey evokes this scenographic phenomenon in their installation: to intervene the heteronormative aura of the gaming space. In doing so, they highlight the way in which RGB PC's in top gaming arenas accidentally lean into the blue and pink signifiers of bisexual lighting; more-so than the rest of the RGB spectrum. This is despite homophobic attitudes which often pervade the spaces.
In response, Energy Drinks & Bisexual Lighting is a portal into gamers’ delight. Through the re-appropriation of 90s LAN party culture and modern-day gaming aesthetics, the viewer is guided through a series of experiences. We invite you to step in and transcend the IRL space: to embody and explore the virtual characters, personas, and worlds of Harriet Davey. When dissolving into the glitched audio anomalies of snake_case, the immersive environment complicates the real and virtual, as well as the coded visual language that is inscribed onto bodies, and constructed in social forums. Spatialised sonic artifacts and imperfections co-conspire with the images to queer the immutable conventions of the gaming room into physical, sublime, kinetic objects.Who could you become in a virtual world? Navigate these realms and confront what it means to wear a digital skin.