Auriea Harvey:
A Walk Through *The Endless Forest*
Friday, March 6, 2026
Doors: 6:00 PM
All Ages
Seated Presentation
View our FAQ page for more info, or contact us at [email protected] with any accommodation requests.
Auriea Harvey:
A Walk Through *The Endless Forest*
Friday, March 6, 2026
Doors: 6:00 PM
All Ages
Seated Presentation
View our FAQ page for more info, or contact us at [email protected] with any accommodation requests.
In advance of the 2026 edition of the Game Developer's Conference (GDC) in San Francisco, Gray Area is thrilled to welcome back noted net.artist, video game designer, and 3D sculptress Auriea Harvey for a special evening focused on her work The Endless Forest. Join us for a virtual romp through Harvey's online fantasy woodland, followed by a cocktail mixer.
The Endless Forest is a multiplayer online game and social screensaver, a virtual place where visitors can play with their friends. Players meet each other in an infinitely generated forest on the internet; an idyllic, peaceful environment where players can only communicate with one another through sounds and body language. You are a deer. So are the other players. Serendipitous events define this pleasant world without goals or competition
Developed together with her partner Michael Samyn for their game studio Tale of Tales, The Endless Forest has been online and playable, for free, for 20 years. With two decades of lore and a treasure trove of hidden secrets, this game has made an enormous impact on a community of very quiet players at the improbable intersection of the contemporary fine art world and cozy indie games. In this one night-only event, join Auriea Harvey and Gray Area Associate Curator Wade Wallerstein for a walk through The Endless Forest, its evolution, and its many mysteries.
Auriea Harvey is a digital sculptor who approaches polygons as mathematical clay, viewing algorithms as contemporary craft materials deserving the same reverence as marble or bronze. Her practice bridges the digital-physical divide through 3D scanning, robotic fabrication, and traditional techniques, creating works that question the boundaries between virtual and tangible, monstrous and divine. A pioneer in net.art since the early days of the World Wide Web, Harvey co-founded the acclaimed studio Tale of Tales with Michael Samyn, where they created groundbreaking interactive experiences that explored the poetic possibilities of digital media. Harvey's current practice encompasses sculpture, digital assemblage, and experimental media. Recently, she has expanded into classical materials, working in bronze and marble—to interrogate the inherent value of those materials in relation to the digital and as a natural evolution of her longstanding interest in form, texture, and the transformation of matter. Her work has been exhibited at prestigious institutions including the Tinguely Museum, Basel; the Victoria & Albert Museum, London; the New Museum, New York; and ZKM, Karlsruhe, Rhizome, and HEFT Gallery in New York. And her work has been collected by the Whitney Museum of American Art, Buffalo AKG Art Museum, KADIST Collection, and The Kramlich Collection. Harvey continues to forge new pathways in contemporary art, whether through her exploration of digital dualism, her innovative use of 3D scanning and printing technologies, or her return to traditional sculptural practices. She currently works from her studio in Rome, where she draws inspiration from the city's rich artistic heritage while pushing the boundaries of what sculpture can be in the 21st century.