Freya Björg olafson
intermedia artist / artiste intermedia

iPad Screen Video of 'Angsty Pool' an AR work in Collaboration with Michael Rees and Freya Björg Olafson at Grounds for Sculpture, NJ 2018-2019

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warriors is a series of works in progress featuring video game character modifications engaged in introspection, preparation, search and defense maneuvers. The figures perform choreographed movements as well as scripted gameplay actions in slow-motion and in strange sequences. At times they address the viewer telepathically. Text and speech is selected and altered from online "ASMR" YouTube videos, which aim to stimulate tingling body sensations and calm audience of followers in utilizing hypnotic methods. warrior characters encounter visible or described challenging surrounding conditions such as being submerged suggest current social or ecological situations which need to be overcome or survived. Thus the external need for resistance or combat. Conflicting emotions, defiance and uncertainty, fear and contemplation outline very a human presence instantiated in a mixture of technological and physical space.

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Pool Scratch, screenshot video of augmented reality, instantiated at the Guggenheim Museum, 2018, featured through the moble exhibition: ACTIVATAR

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Pool Scratch, Will Pappenheimer and Freya Björg Olafson, screenshot of augmented reality, instantiated at the Guggenheim Museum, 2018, featured through the moble exhibition: ACTIVATAR
Pool Scratch is a collaborative work by Will Pappenheimer and Intermedia/dance artist Freya Björg Olafson. The work translates Olafson's spontaneous choreography, through motion capture, to a ready-made early medieval warrior searching endlessly downwards in a contemporary swimming pool. The work, instantiated in a viewer's environment, is meant to pose a strange mixture of realities, identity crossings and mysterious activities.

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Freya acknowledges the generous support of the Manitoba Arts Council and Canada Council for the Arts, the AR/VR Artist Research Residency Pilot organized by Oregon Story Board, Eyebeam and Upfor Gallery in Portland as well as the 13th Annual Montréal Choreographic Workshop. In 2017 this work was developed through the CounterPulse (San Francisco) ‘Artist Residency Commissioning Program’ with the support of the National Endowment for the Arts, the Zellerbach Family Foundation, and the Ken Hempel Fund for the Arts.