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Impenetrable as Night

“Impenetrable as Night” takes inspiration from the landscape of northern Iceland as virtual site for a demented tactical and techno-spiritual training camp. Covert mountain-like structures in the fjord reveal themselves to be hybrids of bunker and landscape, and metaphors for “the closet.” Animated figures perform actions that blur the line between worship, ritual violence and queer eroticism. The iconic icelandic “hot tubs” become potential sites for some sort of sinister training activity, violent or erotic ritual. The virtuality of the space is revealed consciously via the inclusion (and revelation) of the 3D wireframe, the visible glitch, the use of real-time rendering of individual frames screen-recorded from Maya, and puncturing and layering of spaces that don’t conform to conventions of believable 3D space.

Rosenthal Benjamin