360: Theo Triantafyllidis

Theo Triantafyllidis is an artist and former architecture graduate, who works with digital and physical media to explore the experience of space and the mechanics of embodiment in hybrid realities. His works playfully utilise algorithmic and gaming technologies to create simulations that augment interactions within immersive environments, both real and virtual, encouraging a performative choreography from participants and onlookers alike.

In his 2017 work, Staphyloculus (or the paradox of site specificity of virtual realities), Triantafyllidis depicts the outbreak of an unknown virus, Polywobbly Fervenitis, a digital signal with an Artificial Intelligence that has mutated into a strain of bacteria, Staphyloculus, which is transmitted through the headset to the physical body. Globular pink chromosomal forms are seen bouncing around the desert site in Joshua Tree, California where the first instance of the virus was recorded by the artist. Combining live footage, photogrammetry and 3D animation, the work shifts perspectives from first person to third person as we experience the virus taking shape and the artist’s own reactions as he contracts the infection.

As with many of his works, Staphyloculus questions the relationship between human and machine, and in particular the way digital technologies change our understanding of landscape and location. Virtual world-building enables a new form of tourism, in which our physical absence may nevertheless generate real memories.

Theo Triantafyllidis was born in 1988 in Athens, Greece. He lives and works in Los Angeles, California.

Theo Triantafyllidis (b.1988 Athens, Greece) received an MFA at Design Media Arts UCLA in 2016. Selected Solo Shows include: Role Play, Meredith Rosen Gallery NY, 2018; Pretzel Twist, The Breeder, Athens, 2017; Obscene Creatures, Resilient Terrains Assembly Point, London, UK, 2017. Selected Group shows include: Athens Biennial, 2018; Still Human at the Rubell Family Collection Miami, FL; Nature of Justice, St. Anne's Warehouse, Brooklyn NY; Hyper Pavilion, Venice Biennale, Venice, IT, 2017; Unreal, NRW Forum, Düsseldorf, DE. 2017; International Topsellers – Human Product, Kunsthalle Exnergasse, Wien, AT 2017; LA times 10, Architecture and Design Museum, LA, CA, 2017;After Belonging, Oslo Architecture Triennale, Oslo, NO. 2016; Game Art Festival, Hammer Museum, LA, CA, 2015.

Sound Design: Holly Waxwing

On Site team: Jenny Rodenhouse, Eli Joveta, Lander

Additional Photogrammetry: Régis Boissenin

Commissioned by NRW-Forum Dusseldorf, DE