*New date* Thursday, November 18, 7 pm ET
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An evening of conversation on labor, AI, performance, among other topics, this artist talk by Alison Nguyen with curator Sophie Cavoulacos looks at the history, underpinnings, and the digital and physical work surrounding her multifaceted project Andra8.

Andra8 takes its name after a computer-generated woman based on the artist’s physicality. From the apartment where she has been ‘placed’ Andra8 works as a digital laborer, surviving off the data from her various ‘freemium’ jobs as a virtual assistant, a data janitor, a life coach, an aspiring influencer, and content creator. Something begins to trouble Andra8: her life depends on her compulsory consumption and output of human data – or so she’s been told. Andra8 explores the implications of such an existence, and what arises when one attempts to subvert them. First exhibited in 2020, the project spans video, installation, sculpture, and interactive online performances.

Audiences who register will have access to the full performances and short film that Nguyen has created as part of the project. The live artist talk will be accessible to audiences for 24 hours after the event. Squeaky Wheel members will have access for 72 hours. Not a member? Sign up here.

About the artist

Alison Nguyen is a New York-based artist whose work spans video, installation, performance, and new media. Her screenings include: e-flux, Ann Arbor Film Festival, International Film Festival Oberhausen, CPH:DOX, Edinburgh International Film Festival, Crossroads presented by SF MoMA/SF Cinemateque, Channels Festival International Biennial of Video Art, True/False Film Festival, Open City Documentary Festival, and Microscope Gallery. Her work has been exhibited at The International Studio & Curatorial Program, AC Gallery Beijing, The Dowse Art Museum, Hartnett Gallery, La Kaje, and The University of Oklahoma, Contemporary Art and Digital Fair, Miami, among others. 

Nguyen has received residencies and fellowships from the International Studio & Curatorial Program, The Institute of Electronic Arts, BRIC, Squeaky Wheel Film and Media Art Center, Signal Culture, and Vermont Studio Center. She has been awarded grants from the Foundation for Contemporary Art, NYSCA, and The New York Community Trust. In 2018 Alison Nguyen was featured in Filmmaker Magazine’s “25 New Faces of Independent Film.” In 2021 she was awarded a NYFA/NYSCA Artist Fellowship in Video/Film. 

Alison Nguyen has been a Guest Lecturer and Visiting Critic at numerous institutions and organizations including Cooper Union, The New School, Rhode Island School of Design, The School of Visual Arts, Sotheby’s Institute of Art, and Squeaky Wheel. Nguyen graduated from Brown Univerisity with a B.A. in Literary Arts. She currently lives and works in Harlem where she is a MFA candidate in Visual Arts at Columbia University School of the Arts.

Sophie Cavoulacos is an Associate Curator of Film at the Museum of Modern Art where she organizes moving image projects across the museum’s cinemas and galleries. Recent exhibitions include the expanded cinema installation Shuzo Azuchi Gulliver’s Cinematic Illumination (2020) and Club 57: Film, Performance, and Art in the East Village, 1978–1983 (2017-8). She has been a programmer for the New Directors/New Films and Doc Fortnight festivals and leads Modern Mondays, MoMA’s artist’s cinema series to which she has contributed programs with Jibade-Khalil Huffman, Habibi Collective, Bernadette Mayer, Metahaven, Nazlı Dinçel, Monira al Qadiri, Emilija Skarnulyte, Raha Raissnia, Alexander Kluge, and many others. Recent film exhibitions also include Currents: Re-Viewing Cineprobe, 1968–2002 (2019) and special projects with The Residents and Ken Okiishi. She is also active in the museum’s collection displays and was part of the curatorial team for MoMA’s 2019 reinstallation.

Production assistance for Andra8 provided by Jonathan Beilin (Technical Director + Cinematographer), Scott Kiernan (Composer), Tim Bruniges (Vocal Sound Designer), Achim Koh (Programmer), Stephanie Neptune (Co-Editor and Post-Production Supervisor), Andrew Nerviano (Sound Mix), and Shisanwu LLC (Drafting).

Banner image: Alison Nguyen, my favorite software is being here, HD video, color, sound, 19 minutes, 2020 – 2021. Image description: An image of a digital environment with the avatar Andra8 with her head leaning over a bag of Lays chips.