Alexa Ann Bonomo

Hyperviolet is a long-form archiving and world-building project with live performance components narrating lore and symbolic motifs. Imagined as an illuminated manuscript, the Moss Corpus is a portal to a surreal simulacrum of relics from everyday life depicting both the pious and carnal nature of flora and fauna. Relics, illustrations, with ever evolving lore added to a 3D world built in Unreal Engine. The project heavily focuses on symbolism of plants and animals to tell stories and depict scenes from lived memories. The space is made up of an ever evolving collection of 3D objects with lore dispersed across the land, designed to grow over time as new relics become added and stored. Overlaid is an interface to input more relics into the database of the world that makes up the book of the moss corpus. The 3D character, Clara, is a Virgil-esque guide around the world that will be controlled through motion capture during live-performance. Alexa has been training for motion-capture performances by learning ballet via the Vagonova Method, a technique and training system developed by Agrippina Vaganova to control Clara herself as the subject during the performance. Rather than directing a dancer herself, Alexa is interested in fully embodying her conceptual ideas as a way to evoke a full devoutness to craft, a moral agreement with herself within her practice. The technique is known primarily for its focus on grace and sylph-like elements. She is also pulling aesthetics from dance films like Oramunde (1933) and Ballerina (2007), as well as from the works of Marta Graham, known as the mother of psychological dance. This work interrogates prototyping methods for preservation as lore, surrealist AI video game dialog, and is dedicated to furthering the capabilities of real-time motion graphics as an artistic medium.

About the Artist

Alexa Ann Bonomo is an artist and scholar who makes 3D simulated worlds, hand bound books, and sculptures with embedded short film elements. Her research focuses on processes surrounding craftsmanship, bookbinding with interactive digital elements while leading to a focus on lore building in game engines. Often through the lens of 'collection as pilgrimage', Alexa infuses craft material and digital worldbuilding by incorporating digital archiving and preservation methods like 3D scanning artifacts on lengthy walks, often referred to as 'derivés'. Her work has been shown at Le Cube Garges (FR), Centre de Cultura Contemporània (SP), Montreal Conference Centre (CA), and The Exploratorium and Gray Area (US). She received her MScR from The University of Edinburgh, MFA from University of California, Davis, and BFA from Towson University. Alexa curates an offsite and online learning + arts collective called Underneath (@underneath.study) and is a researcher in The World Engines Lab.