After pioneering net art and video games in the 1990s, Auriea Harvey (USA, 1971) has now turned her attention to digital sculpture, 3D printing, and mixed reality - producing simulations and sculptures that bridge physical and digital space.
Pelops I (2022) is a sculpture that has both a physical and a digital manifestation that complement each other. Harvey’s sculptural process begins with making scans of elements from real life; for example, the artwork Pelops had a scan of Harvey herself as its starting point.These scans mutate as they are combined with others from her extensive library: 3D models based on her own clay sculptures, works of imagination digitally sculpted, and artworks encountered in museums. Harvey sifts through artifacts of Western culture in order to find herself and traces of her African American diasporic lineage. These objects are hybrid products, made in Western Europe but borrowing from its colonies. The sculptures show Harvey’s influences, whilst being fused with her own creation to reinvent, reinterpret and retell narratives.