A kaleidoscope of events unfolding under the umbrella of Living Avatar is an attempt to extend traditional educational approach of rigidly defined disciplines and methodologies into an augmented, flexible framework of unified haptic and non-haptic (virtual) strategies.

As a mythological device, avatar has a long and significant history spanning through Hinduism, ancient Greek mythology and subsequent doctrines of belief, and marks a manifestation of ideal (deity) among real (common mortals). In a current context, with the advent of the digital graphical representation and global communications, avatar, as a bounded anonymity, became a private dislocation of the common mortal (registered user) into the ideal (virtual) world. Increasingly not only members of those communities are taking lives of their avatars quite seriously, but also the very institutions commanding our “real” lives are getting involved in virtual affairs: recently Tokyo woman was arrested for murdering her husband’s avatar. This dynamical and sometimes reversible dichotomy between real and ideal serves as a narrative paradigm of the class.

If avatar is a reflection (of self) what kind of mirror are we are looking at? Avatar unlike self-portrait marks not a physical similarity to the bearer but a claim of state. It establishes a proprietary and therefore hierarchical link between two: master and slave. Mending or breaking this link would result in unpredictable states of the avatar or more precisely of the ex-avatar. Students are encouraged to manifest their own versions of relationship between the two and modulate all the imaginable departures from the traditional iconography.

This seminar is envisioned to provide a number of educational mise-en-scènes such as workshops on smart wearables, fashion design, sewing techniques, clay and 3D-modeling, scanning and laser-cutting in diverse media; This variety of events will expose the audience to array of different techniques and methodologies relevant to the concept of the class. As the semester progresses, students are expected to cross two realms of haptic and non-haptic, perhaps more than once; on the way fulfilling number of mini-tasks and finally bringing their virtually conceived self (avatar) in the physical world. At the end, our activities will culminate into a spectacle of performative presentations of “living” avatars—movable and wearable objects physically animated by their creators. Results of this class could potentially be presented during the KHM’s 20‘s year celebration and perhaps be included in a procession of Kölner Karneval.

Workshop:

• „Bodybuilding“. Von 2D- zu 3D-Schnittkonstruktion und plastische Form.
  Mit Daniela Maria Hirsch, Künstlerin und Modedesignerin, Wien.

Gäste: n.n.