Lauren Moffatt: The Tulpamancer

Opening: Tue, Nov 12, 19:00

A tulpa is a mental companion created through focused thought and recurrent interaction, similar to an imaginary friend. However, unlike an imaginary friend, tulpas have their own will, their thoughts and their emotions, allowing them to act independently.

The video installation The Tulpamancer tells the story of a person who creates a personal mythology and gives it life through automated workflows, hoping it will neutralise her anxieties about online and offline life. The central figure, known as the Tulpamancer, is a reincarnation of the artist Lauren Moffatt’s earlier self — like Lauren at age 17, the Tulpamancer is the host of five tulpas.

The Tulpamancer’s creation is a thought experiment, prompted by the ambivalence Lauren Moffatt feels today when considering positive and negative potential of web 2.0: what would have happened to Lauren Moffatt and her tulpas if she were 17 years old in 2019 rather than in 1999? Would the web, with its social media, avatars, self publication and fan fiction have given her and her tulpas a home and a community? Made her feel less lonely? Or would the depth and width of the internet, with its trolls and scammers and people traffickers lurking beneath the surface have magnified her fears and transformed her tulpas into monsters rampaging the web?

With video, performance and immersive technologies, australian artist Lauren Moffatt (b. 1982) explores contemporary subjectivity, networks and the blurring of borders between the real and the virtual world.

A main contribution in the latest issue EIKON #108 is dedicated to the artist.