In a galactic cabaret on the outskirts of the galaxy, extraterrestrials sing and dance flamenco, powered by a soundtrack by Exotourisme. Viewable to all creatures from the park outside Serpentine Galleries, Holorama 5 (LoieFullerforever) employs diverse media and the notion of performativity to create an alien apparition. Part of Gonzalez-Foerster’s ongoing series of ‘Apparitions’ – fictional and non-fictional characters conjured by the artist after extensive research and study – Holorama 5 (LoieFullerforever) explores the idea of alien life as it intersects with artistic creation. Originally conceived as live, singular occurrences, Gonzalez Foerster’s ‘Apparitions’ of characters such as novelist and poet Emily Brontë (1818–1848), director Werner Herzog’s daydreaming protagonist Fitzcarraldo and opera singer Maria Callas (1923–1977), focus on moments of intense artistic creation. Later developed into durational holographic illusions, the ‘Apparitions’ have appeared in projects including Marienbad électrique at Palais Garnier (Paris, 2019) and The Infinite Mix at 180 The Strand, organised by Hayward Gallery (London, 2016). The work features music by Julien Perez/Exotourisme

The Vega Foundation produced this new holographic work by Dominique Gonzalez-Foerster, as part of her exhibition Alienarium 5 at Serpentine Galleries. Curated by Claude Adjil and Hans Ulrich Obrist with Kate Wong, the exhibition was on view April 14–September 4, 2022.

Dominique Gonzalez-Foerster is a French artist, born in 1965 in Strasbourg.  Gonzalez-Foerster’s practice is restlessly cross-disciplinary, taking cues from film, literature, architecture, philosophy and critical theory. Through immersive installations that include film or are suggestive of filmic tropes, Gonzalez-Foerster uses the medium of experience as a way to question the essences of objects and the meaning of context. Trafficking in a unique type of psychological collage within works and between them, her varied oeuvre has taken myriad forms, including collected fragments of modernist buildings in Brazil, an autobiographical hanging of 40 years of her own wardrobe, and an immersive light and sound environment meant to evoke the chaos, dread, and wonderment of future lives. In her latest works, the Apparitions, Gonzalez-Foerster uses live performance and holographic projections that conflate characters from history, literature and film with their sociological sources and ramifications. Often relying on elliptical texts that place equal weight on fiction, fact, and the pluralism of memory, Gonzalez-Foerster creates heterogeneous worlds that thrive on the tension between finite and infinite, the empirical and the dramaturgical. Gonzalez-Foerster is the recipient of the 2002 Marcel Duchamp Award.