ABOUT THE WORK
MORE LIFE by Claudia Hart is both a tragic and an ironic comment on the virtual world generally and, specifically, the world of the imaginary, which is animation itself.
Originally premiered in MOMA PS1’s ANIMATIONS, an early exhibition on CGI art in 2001, MORE LIFE underscores Hart’s continued interests in the political salience of the cyborg, as a being that projects excess and challenges ideas of anthropocentricism, and in doing so, counters the techno-progressive, masculine and extractivist dominions of technology.
MORE LIFE runs for all of four seconds, the camera panning rapidly in and out of a blocky television stationed in the corner of a lurid green room. On its pixelated screen, a cartoonish pink bear proclaims, "I want more life, fucker," a quote from replicant Roy Batty’s death speech in the 1982 film BLADE RUNNER (1982). Batty, the renegade replicant played by Rutger Hauer, explains to his creator, the founder of the Tyrell Corporation, why he is about to kill him. "I want more life, fucker," is what Roy Batty demands of Tyrell, reproaching him bitterly. Tyrell has programmed all of the androids produced by his corporation to have a limited two-year life span. "I want more life, fucker," Batty growls, right before he crushes Tyrell's head.
The presentation format is a large TV placed on the floor in the corner of a dark room, mirroring the scene represented in the animation: a TV in the corner of a dark room, broadcasting a "talking head"—a stuffed bear—speaking in a corner of a dark room, standing in front of a TV in a dark room, also broadcasting the same talking head—a stuffed bear—speaking in a corner of a dark room... ad infinitum.
MORE LIFE is a recursive system—meaning a self-reflecting system—that uses itself to build itself. Just like those used in the programming languages of thinking machines like the computer.
MORE LIFE IN PAST EXHIBITIONS
2023, THE CUTE SHOW, curated by Anika Meier, EXPANDED.ART
2003, ANIMATIONS, curated by Carolyn Christov-Barkargiev and Larissa Harris, Kunstwerke Berlin
2001/2, ANIMATIONS, curated by Carolyn Christov-Barkargiev and Larissa Harris, PS1, New York
