Kara Gut
Intimacy Mod
2018-2019
dimensions variable
video/installation/performance
STATEMENT:
Using image and screen-based media, my work often questions ownership of digital spaces and how they mirror or perpetuate oppressive systems. The resulting pieces are subversions of power: at times manifesting as imperfect relics attempting to perform a hidden and ineffable magic, or long-form video essays haunting the devices they inhabit. Employing tropes of absurdist humor mixed with existential dread, my work pokes at the underpinnings of internet culture by appropriating the subgenres of the post-digital patriarchal industrial complex.
Using the mod “Immersive Lover’s Comfort” by flexcreator, Intimacy Mod distorts the intended narrative and replaces it with an in-game performance carried out by the player-character and an npc (non-player character). Locations for each performance depend on precariousness, visibility, and absurdity, allowing two characters to obstruct the normal ebb and flow of life in the action role-playing game Skyrim.
These performances posit the question: does mediation through digital space take us further from human experience, or closer? Does removal of the real body take along with it our sense of humanity, or does it release inhibition, freeing us from the trappings of the proverbial “meat suit”? Perhaps in the absence of a real body, an entirely new language of performance can occur; an alternative mode of expression not tied to physical identities. With that in mind, does intimacy, desire, sexuality, and longing still translate?
BIO:
Kara Gut is a multidisciplinary artist whose primary focus is image-based, digital media. Her work investigates the new shape of human intimacy formed by internet lifestyle, constructed detachment from reality, and the power dynamics of the virtual. She received an MFA from Cranbrook Academy of Art in 2016. Accolades include the Firestone Photography Award, The Cranbrook Museum Acquisition Prize, and the Peter MacKendrick Endowment Fund for Visual Artists. In 2016 she was an artist in residency at the Banff Centre. Her work has been shown nationally and internationally. Solo shows include Permissions at The Muted Horn Gallery in Cleveland, Ohio, and Crystal Magic Weapon at Open Space, Baltimore. Her work has been featured by Refigural Magazine, The Detroit Center for Contemporary Photography, and the 2019 Milan Machinima Festival. Kara currently lives and works in Columbus, Ohio.