IPSEITY
Ipseity is a world of mythological deities, scenes and objects that narrate new rituals around today’s notions of identity by New Media Artist Enrique Agudo. Curated objects, furniture and artifacts overlay the materialization of these topics into seductive visuals that the world can identify with. They suggest how we will live, what we will live for and what it will mean to be human tomorrow
This project is a collection of 8 digital paintings on LED displays that contain windows into the worlds of 8 new deities that speak to the role technology plays into what it means to be human today. They explore notions of gender, sexuality, chosen family or cultural heritage, youth and wisdom among others. These scenes contain spaces, objects, costumes, machines that explore the myths of selfhood in today's technological world.
The artworks present integrated generative animations connected to real time data in which the digital and the physical are suspended into a mythological allegory that might make one wonder about how the design of technology might be thought of as a generator of culture and not merely a vehicle for efficiency. The unknowns of this time are distinctly defined by technology, and so we must turn to technology as a way to continue to define what it means to be human. Our futures are not sterile environments abstracted from cultural practice, individual identity, or collective truth.
www.ipseity.art
Creative Director ENRIQUE AGUDO
Executive Producer SARAH J. VILLAREAL
3D/VFX Lead & Art Director MIWA ESPINOZA
3D/VFX Lead & Art Director MICHELLE RECIO
Technical & Generative Design Lead MATEA FRIEND
VFX Producer MOHAMMAD SOLEI
Full credits below
The ALCHEMIST
The Alchemist is the entity of Youth, of possibility and hope. A self-made force engineering organic compounds into biochemical perfumes with the ambitious mission to gain the power to heal the Earth. This deity conjures and creates elixirs that tinker with fast-evolving ecological demise, transforming doom into opportunity.
The ORACLE
The Oracle is the goddess of Wisdom, weaving inside and outside the realm of observable reality. Despite her ever-expanding knowledge of academia, philosophy and science, she holds a power that exceeds empirical abundance, lived experience. Her instinct is built on years of failures, successes, challenges and improvisations that have shown her to understand the invisible factors of any situation, and layer that prediction onto the pillars of sagacity of humankind.
The SABOTEUR
The Saboteur is the goddess of Chaos, addiction, energy waste and destruction. The wake of her endless escape ripples endlessly on her environment, she has a penchant for deliberately destroying and consuming, hijacking her integrity, her planet, her body, and her reliability. Energy burns around her, the wasteland she holds onto is a consequence of her tempest-swept mind. Robotic trash-pickers lift the technological debris and put it down somewhere else, going nowhere, nothing matters.
The HARVESTER
The Harvester is the Goddess of Serenity, of renewal, of energy synchronicity. She is confident she has earned her stride, centered, exuding an unassailable peace. Even if unconvinced, she performs the behaviour that she desires her future self to have, she balances compassion and consistency and never fails to take things with humour. She harvests, stores, and accumulates clean energy with her system of planetary fabrics harnessing the winds, as her impact on her environment is a reflection of her relationship to herself.
The KEEPER
The Keeper is the god of Sexuality, self perception, and digital distortion, a beautiful femme boy with the perfect body and face, tormented by algorithmic distortions of his lust for others, for things, for himself. He looks to apps and social platforms for ways of increasing his appeal. The algorithmic platters of references and influences that contribute to his online persona are as essential as the air he breathes, endless grids of distorted mirrors that, in him, manufacture desire as they fluctuate between uplifting aspiration and thorny insecurity.
The KINDRED
The Kindred is the goddess of Chosen Family, of runaways, of outcasts. Her blood might not run in similar lines to her family’s, but they move as one. Breaking free from shame, and judgment, she is a supreme mother of a collective of unique beings, and despite their origins, she carries a message of unconditional love to her community. She is surrounded by unique shrubs and flowers that evolved biologically through consistent nurture, flora transforming uniquely because of generations of care from this unit of othered children.
The DAUGHTER
The Daughter is the goddess of Gender, tenacity, of dance and of dusk. Rather than slithering into her gendered position in the world, contained in the body corset she was once encased in, the fluid movement of her body breaks away from expectation and is in a constant state of flux. Her movement pulls connected strings that conjure the magic of the forest at dusk, her loyalty to individual identity pulls effect into broader environmental structures. She sees herself as more than just a human body, she transcends the flesh that binds her and sees herself as a resilient spirit, and her defiance gives others permission to do the same.
The NOMAD
The Nomad is the goddess of Home, of seeds and spores, of a sense of place. She is leader with a calling to return stolen land back to the Earth, on a quest towards geoengineering the planet to rehabilitation through reforestation and decontamination. She has made it her purpose to gather a collective of matriarchs to join a shift to a new kind of pastoral. Technology is her tool, the planet is her hurting sibling. Home is the result of a reciprocal relationship between her group and the landscape.
NFTs
CREDITS
Creative Director ENRIQUE AGUDO
Executive Producer SARAH J. VILLAREAL
3D/VFX Lead & Art Director MIWA ESPINOZA
3D/VFX Lead & Art Director MICHELLE RECIO
Technical & Generative Design Lead MATEA FRIEND
VFX Producer MOHAMMAD SOLEI
Editor VLADIMIR ZELINSKIY
Sound JULES FOSFORO
Procedural Flower Artist ARMIN LOTFI
Technical Consultant STEFAN KRAUS
Poetry written and recited by JENEVIEVE TING
Fashion Illustrations ROB UNETT
Costume Design ENRIQUE AGUDO
Digital Costumes ADIELLA BASCHE
3D Scanning HUMAN ENGINE
Grooming ALINA VILKOVA
Grooming JACKSON LUKAS
Grooming MICHELLE RECIO
Grooming CHERRIE TSOI
Makeup Design MICHAEL ANTHONY
Casting SAMANTHA BLAKE GOODMAN
The Alchemist MAEVE ELLIS SULLIVAN
The Oracle KAREN MCDONALD
The Keeper DAMONTAE HACK
The Saboteur VIDYA GILLEY
The Harvester MONIQUE SYPKENS
The Daughter B GOSSE
The Kindred GRACIE CARTIER
The Nomad JO BARAJAS
3D Artist SHURUQ TRAMONTINI
3D Artist ANDRE ZAKHYA
3D Artist NAMAN SHARMA
Worldbuilder & Researcher ENRIQUE AGUDO
Worldbuilder & Researcher GINA CROW
Worldbuilder & Researcher PIERS MYERS
Special thanks to Yoona Yi, Bianca Hernandez, Jonathan Ong, IE University, The Art of Elysium, National Endowment for The Arts, SCI-Arc