arebyte presents Club Zero by digital avatar and artist La Turbo Avedon, a new online commission as part of arebyte’s 2022 programme around Sci-Fi. 

Club Zero follows the emergence of three new avatars presented as non-fungible people (NFP’s,) who inhabit La Turbo Avedon’s new work Materia (2022), a collection of unique blockchain-integrated virtual artefacts that are capable of influencing the aesthetics, forms, and future of the work's overarching system.

The three unnamed and pre-developed unfinished NFP’s are rendered non-binary avatars algorithmically generated using character generation technology developed by Daz 3D - for sale on Open Sea, with proof of ownership stored on the Ethereum blockchain.

Throughout the exhibition, visitors are granted access to the hidden backend of Avedon’s creative process through three interactive sessions to determine the avatar's final appearance. During these editor sessions live-streamed on Twitch, the three NFP’s will directly interact with viewers by posing questions that prompt the audience to decide on their shape, appearance, identity and name. Presented in a transition of their customisation of self, the avatars portray a hyperreal scene fraught with identity, agency and personification through the digital.

Experienced inside the club atmosphere of Club Zero (the club space within Materia) the new avatars in the exhibition titled the same are introduced to the visitors in a ‘starter zone’ via interactive moments that build on various aspects of each NFPs being.  During the run of the exhibition, the platform culminates in three different perspectives as each avatar confronts their own creation and experience in simulated worlds. The club becomes the laboratory and meeting point for those who are invested in the co-creation of an avatar that will be of many voices and opinions.  The "starter zone" of Club Zero riffs off the current moment and continued interest in the personalisation of self and of constructing a virtual self in the metaverse. Released from the quick pace of the NFT world, Avedon’s NFPs are brought to life slowly, through connection to an involved audience, and through the friction of converging user experiences. 

Expanding on their practice of fluid identity within the digital space, Avedon addresses the variability of virtual forms, and how they can continue to be reshaped and changed through varied ownership and trading. While our physically embodied identities might be more static in some ways, the NFPs created in Club Zero will be in states of flux, their fate of appearance, identity and history-dependent upon the choices made by visiting players. Implementing character traits as well as external appearances is important in Club Zero. Presented in dialogue boxes, each NFP is anthropomorphised as an attempt to introduce a holistic method of character design, one that feels intrinsically more personal and intimate.

In a time when many people are buying avatars, profile pictures (PFPs) and virtual characters solely to trade as commodities or temporary self-representation, Club Zero presents itself as an antidote to the hyper-capitalised avatar moment of the metaverse and beyond. For Avedon, ‘rescuing these NFPs from a different sort of second life’, and providing them with multi-level care from any participant who wants to help construct them, goes against the notion of the avatar being solely an icon or figure representing a particular person in the digital space. Instead, the avatar is collectively formed and therefore poses a collective responsibility from those who created them.

Opening new visitors up to the background of Materia - the hierarchies, the lore, and the entanglement within a blockchain-linked system - the NFPs act as unofficial guides to the work through narratives created in tandem with the audience participation in ways that will permanently shape them. The NFPs also expand on the role of NFTs and blockchain systems within art and how the future might look for technology of this kind. Based on remembrance, lineage, action, and narrative, Club Zero reflects on identity in online worlds and brings to light the ever-changing role of the avatar in the future of communities, online and offline platforms, and collaborative co-creation.

1. Daz Productions, Inc. is a 3D-content and software company specialising in providing rigged 3D human models, associated accessory content, and software to the hobbyist as well as the prosumer market. https://www.daz3d.com/

2. The world’s first and largest marketplace for the buying and selling of creative digital assets and non-fungible tokens.

EVENTS PROGRAMME

Launch Event
Thur 7 July, 7pm Uk time
Online, Live-stream via Twitch
For the launch of Club Zero, LaTurbo Avedon invites viewers to join them on Twitch for a tour of Club Zero to discover how the exhibition will unfold

NFP Audience Co-Creation #1
Thur 14th of July, 7pm UK time
Online, Live-stream via Twitch
An online participatory event with LaTurbo Avedon where viewers are prompted by a series of on-stream questions related to the character parameters. Through their answers, participants get to directly and collectively influence the appearance and identity of the three NFPs.

NFP Audience Co-Creation #2
Thur 28th of July, 7pm UK time
Online, Live-stream via Twitch
An online participatory event with LaTurbo Avedon where viewers are prompted by a series of on-stream questions related to the character parameters. Through their answers, participants get to directly and collectively influence the appearance and identity of the three NFPs.

NFP Audience Co-Creation #3
Thur 11th of Aug, 7pm UK time
Online, Live-stream via Twitch
An online participatory event with LaTurbo Avedon where viewers are prompted by a series of on-stream questions related to the character parameters. Through their answers, participants get to directly and collectively influence the appearance and identity of the three NFPs.

Closing Event
Thursday 25th Aug, 7pm UK time
Online, Live-stream via Twitch
For the closing of Club Zero, LaTurbo Avedon invites viewers to join them and the three new NFP’s - Tangent Core, Glyph Antialias, and One Ever - on Twitch. Participants will be invited to begin the journey of the three recently created characters as they enter the Ruins framework.

READ THE EXHIBITION BOOKLET

TALKING HEADS
Experts within the digital arts sector are invited to review and discuss the works of the exhibiting artist.