TEMPORAL PORTRAIT | CARRIE CHEN

Temporal Portrait 时间肖像 (2023) by Carrie Chen is the first video presented within the program Pattern, the sixth edition of Digital Video Wall (DVW), an annual project curated by Gemma Fantacci and structured in thematic chapters, aimed at promoting the dissemination and experimentation of digital art.

Simultaneously a group portrait and a self-portrait, Temporal Portrait imagines the moment when transgenerational versions of the artist’s 3D selves gather in spacetime. Utilizing a workflow that synthesizes family archives, artificial intelligence, digital avatars, and motion capture technology, the artist performs her aged selves through avatars that exist in alternate timelines and imagined histories. Chen began by using GAN-powered AI algorithms to generate aged versions of herself from now until 80 years old. These AI-generated outputs were then synthesized with family photos of herself as a child, as well as archival images of her mother, grandmothers, and great-grandmothers, to create the final base portraits. These portraits were then carefully mapped onto custom avatars using 3D software. She used motion capture technology to perform the movements of each figure. Facial motion capture was used to simulate nuanced expressions, bringing each avatar to life. Projected at lifesize-scale, the figures correspond to the artist’s actual height.
An endlessly looping 3D simulation, their collective presence meditates on nonlinear concepts of time and the artist’s existence as a Chinese American woman, celebrating resiliency and life. Together, the 24 female figures occupy a long stretch of space. They breathe, blink, and hold their gaze with the viewer as a confrontational gesture responding to the marginalization of women and as a subversive stance on the male-dominated genre of group portraiture. The group portrait condenses notions of tradition, lineage, age, and beauty into a monumental installation that is both rooted in the past and extending into the future.

Carrie Chen (she/her) is an artist, creative director, independent curator, and educator based in Los Angeles. Her work spans CGI animation, real-time interactivity, game engine simulation, and installation, exploring themes of hybridity, representation, time, and memory. Spending time between the US and China, Carrie’s practice draws on non-Western ontologies while also deconstructing and reconfiguring her relationship to intercultural narratives. With a transdisciplinary approach, she is interested in what she calls the “Productive Uncanny” and engages with the complexities of social behavior, digital bodies, culture and technology.
Her expanded practice includes creative direction, design commissions, and teaching. As Creative Director at Spectra Studio, she leads visual direction for multimedia installations and spearheads community engagement. She has led design commissions for clients including OVO Sound, Epitaph Records, and David Zwirner. Chen is currently an Adjunct Assistant Professor at USC’s Media Arts + Practice program, where she teaches Advanced Visual Communication. She is also a lecturer of 3D Arts at Parsons Design & Technology. She holds an MFA from UCLA Design Media Arts and dual Bachelor’s degrees in Applied Psychology and Art History from New York University.

© Carrie Chen, Temporal Portrait, 2023, video still, courtesy the artist