LAUREN MOFFATT FRAGMENTATION ENGINE NOVEMBER 15-30, 2024 https://gameplayarts.org/products/lauren-moffatt-fragmentation-engine "Fragmentation Engine" refers to breaking down larger systems into smaller, interconnected parts, allowing an overview through segmentation and reassembly. The exhibition uses video game technology as a fragmentation engine to explore world-building, image worlds, and avatar creation, dissecting complex systems into smaller facets or building smaller facets into complex systems to reveal new layers of meaning. As Moffatt explains: "My relationship with game worlds is not so much about game playing. I build into a universe that I can then share with others through game engine-based work." Drawing from real and fictional myths of Los Angeles, the works in this exhibition are fragmentary in both literal and figurative senses. Together, they create an environment of controlled dismantling and reconfiguration—sometimes reflective, sometimes outward-facing. Through close attention to details, moods, and surfaces, Moffatt crafts intricate virtual worlds that invite careful observation, conveying an underlying sense that forms are always on the verge of shifting and transforming. She notes: "I'm obsessive about the details and the surfaces of things. They have a sensory experience.” She aims for viewers to "feel like they're going through a journey with it that's uncomfortable, even if it is fascinating. People feel pulled in and alienated by the work." Works Nobody Never Mind (2023): A group of figures are collected in an underground bar. The characters’ spectral presence and looping monologues evoke a world where these ghostly figures are trapped, waiting in a shadowy reflection of what once was. Their fragmented dialogues echo in perpetual loops, suggesting an artificial mental ecology where memories and emotions endlessly recycle. Video and Augmented Reality Installation iOS AR-enabled device, television monitor Local Binaries (2022) Augmented Reality Installation iOS AR-enabled device Dimensions variable Image Technology Echoes (2021, Virtual Reality Installation) immerses viewers in a quiet, almost surreal gallery space, where two characters engage in a stilted, looping exchange. When stepping into their inner worlds, viewers encounter chaotic rooms filled with fragmented thoughts and AI-generated monologues, revealing the disparity between polished appearances and tangled, broken thoughts beneath. This work reflects how perception and understanding evolve within individual mental ecologies, shaped by internal and external influences. Compost (2019 - ongoing) Video and Photogrammetry Installation) explores themes of regeneration and decay, transforming digital errors into forms that blend the sublime with the imperfect. The photogrammetry process introduces distortions, resulting in sculptures that embody a strange, decaying beauty. The series suggests a kind of ecological decay, where imperfections foster new, distorted forms, as if the digital environment itself were alive and constantly reshaping. The Unbinding (2014, Digital Video Installation) examines self-construction as a process of continuous reinvention. The protagonist reconfigures herself through fragments of found images, embodying an illusion of control and beauty. This cyclical and fleeting act reveals how the pursuit of glamour can lead to a fractured identity. The work invites viewers to consider an ecology of fragmented consciousness, where each reinvention draws from and reshapes the surrounding environment. Lilies (2024) Single-channel Video, Vertical HD Display (1080 x 1920) About Lauren Moffatt Lauren Moffatt is an Australian artist working with immersive environments and experimental narrative practices. Her works, often presented in hybrid and iterative forms, explore the paradoxical subjectivity of connected bodies and the indistinct boundaries between digital and organic life. In 2021 she was awarded the DKB VR Art Prize (DE) and in 2022 she was awarded the I Certamen Internacional de Arte Digital (ES) and the Revista MAKMA Aquisition Prize (ES). Lauren completed her studies in painting, in theory and practice of new media art and in audiovisual creation at the College of FineArts (AU), Université Paris VIII (FR), and at Le Fresnoy Studi National des Arts Contemporains (FR) respectively. Lauren's works have been exhibited at Haus der Kulturen der Welt (DE), Centre Pompidou (FR), La Gaïté Lyrique (FR), SXSW (US), Haus am Lützowplatz (DE), UNSW Galleries (AU), Daegu Art Museum (KOR), Le Grand Palais Ephémère (FR), SAVVY Contemporary (DE), FACT Liverpool (UK) The Sundance Film Festival (US) ZKM (DE), Q21 Freiraum (AT) and at Hartware MedienkunstVerein (DE). She lives and works in Berlin and Valencia.