Gray Area presents SMALL VOID, a new simulation-based artwork by Los Angeles-based artist Alice Bucknell. This solo exhibition is Bucknell’s second major presentation of work at Gray Area, following the premiere of their speculative simulation feature film, The Alluvials, which debuted in San Francisco in 2024.

SMALL VOID is a cooperative two-player “call and response” game exploring the limits of language, attachment theory and cosmic annihilation. Developed through the Collide residency program between Arts at CERN and Copenhagen Contemporary, the game’s mechanics are inspired by the paradoxes of black holes and quantum entanglement, and conceived in dialog with theoretical physicists at CERN. The game’s world, meanwhile, is inspired by the aliens beneath our feet—lichens—and the macro-micro, one-many, inside-outside, and living-dead confusion that their very existence instates.

SMALL VOID is also a queer dating sim about the frictions and expansions of identity that love induces, breakdowns of communication, and the ways a world, as an active agent or player, transforms all beings who move through it. Built in Unreal Engine, SMALL VOID is presented at Gray Area in a new, site-specific installation format. The exhibit is a continuation of Gray Area’s focus on artist-made games, creative simulation, and world-building with game engines.

SMALL VOID is developed in collaboration with Jonathan Coryn, scored by Madga Drozd, features a custom typeface by Daytona Mess, and was produced with the support of Vincent Moulinet.

The Gray Area Gallery is open during public events, and by appointment. Please email [email protected] to schedule a visit.

Gray Area Opens New Gallery Space August 25, 2022 with Inaugural Exhibition

We're thrilled to announce the opening of the new Gray Area Gallery on August 25, 2022, a permanent exhibition space located within Gray Area's current home in the MIssion District's Grand Theater.

Gray Area was originally launched in 2006 by Founding Executive Director Josette Melchor as Gray Area Gallery in San Francisco's South of Market (SoMa) to showcase technology-driven art. The Gallery transformed into the Gray Area non-profit in 2008, and exhibited works by seminal new media artists including Casey Reas, Aaron Koblin, Camille Utterback, and STAMEN Design. During this time, the space quickly became a cultural community center, developing notable civic engagement programs activating communities to respond to local urban issues, and expanding with educational programs, research, and live performances.

The new Gray Area Gallery continues the tradition of making genre-bending work accessible to the public. In tandem with broader Gray Area thematic initiatives, the first year of gallery curation will center on the complicated tensions and surface areas between identity, representation, expression, oppression, and technology.

Where We Live? - Steven Piasecki & Michael Meisel (July 2022)