Gray Area presents View Finder: Speculative Simulation Film Program, a special, short-run salon exhibition of films by Alice Bucknell and Lawrence Lek. From January 11–13 and 19–21, join us during open hours in the Grand Theater to experience large-scale projections of CGI-based contemporary artworks.

Both Bucknell and Lek use high fidelity computer-rendered environments to create rich, speculative fiction film works that explore rapidly evolving technologies and their impacts on society. Presented on Gray Area’s 40-foot screen, this rapid-response program seeks to create an interface between audiences and time-based media artworks, with the aim of sparking conversation around pressing contemporary issues. The films on view ask important questions about the role of technologies like artificial intelligence and advanced terrascaping, and use storytelling to forecast possible pathways into uncharted technoscapes.

Lawrence Lek’s first feature-length film, AIDOL 爱道 is a CGI fantasy that forms the sequel to his acclaimed film Geomancer (2017). Deploying 3D rendering and video gaming software, AIDOL tells the story of Diva – a fading superstar preparing for a comeback performance at the 2065 'eSports Olympics' – and Geo, an AI with artistic yearnings.

Set in a smoke-and-mirrors realm of fantastical architecture, sentient drones and snow-deluged jungles, AIDOL revolves around the long and complex struggle between humanity and Artificial Intelligence. Fame – in all its allure and emptiness – is set against the bigger contradictions of a post-AI world, a world where originality is sometimes no more than an algorithmic trick and where machines have the capacity for love and suffering. Contemporary anxieties and fixations – the rise of AI, the formulaic dictates of celebrity, the hegemony of technological giants – are refracted through a quixotic prism. AIDOL is accompanied by a score composed and orchestrated by the artist.