warriors
Will Pappenheimer 2018

Its OK, screenshot of augmented reality, 2018, Grounds For Sculpture, NJ
It's OK, functioning as a collaborative collage, augmenting Michael Rees' sculpture and imagery. The work feature a character derived from a 3D gaming avatar who emerges from the surfaces of Rees' image as a form of co-existential virtual performance. This work, features a character, Micah, who comes forward towards the viewer and delivers an internal monologue of preparation and advice for a forthcoming battle. As Micah moves and gestures, a mysterious brush mark traces her movements as an extension of the wall image as a painting. The tone of Micah's talk, which is modified from an online "ASMR" role-play video, is intended to be intimate and therapeutic. The work evokes the emotional and physical presence of a virtual persona, opening a telepathic relationship of camaraderie to the viewer.

Pool Scratch, Will Pappenheimer and Freya Björg Olafson, screenshot of augmented reality, instantiated at the Guggenheim Museum, 2018, featured through the moble exhibition: ACTIVATAR
Pool Scratch is a collaborative work by Will Pappenheimer and Intermedia/dance artist Freya Björg Olafson. The work translates Olafson's spontaneous choreography, through motion capture, to a ready-made early medieval warrior searching endlessly downwards in a contemporary swimming pool. The work, instantiated in a viewer's environment, is meant to pose a strange mixture of realities, identity crossings and mysterious activities.

Waters Rising, screenshot of augmented reality, 2018
"Waters Rising" Immerses the viewer in a room sized scene around the viewer in which a video game character, "Galactic Girl" fights a strangely beautiful apocalyptic scene in slow motion. With an Oppenheim sword made of fur and a Duchamp roto-relief shield, she maneuvers around falling super rocks and flying parakeets as the water rises around the room. Eventually we are under water as she is undeterred at her task of persistence. The work suggests contemporary conditions, fashioned out of common prefabricated content used in 3D game authoring, encountered on-site in the physical world.

Angsty Pool, screenshot of augmented reality, Grounds for Sculpture, collaboation with Michael Rees, 2018
Angsty Pool liquefies Michael Rees' large abstract black and white crosshatched wall image into a rippling pool. Moving throughout the shallow water are five duplicate male base game characters in underwear, who perform motions of cleansing, lounging and occasionally looking out at the audience. Their movements are guided by a process of motion capture previously enacted physically by my collaborator, Freya Björg Olafson. As suggested by the title, the turbulence across the across the underlying image as well as the churning motions of the characters evoke conditions of anxiety even in the midst of the relaxing act of swimming. These conditions are meant to relate to troubling issues of identity circulating through contemporary culture, at the same time as the the desire to wash them away.