Filip Kostic & Theo Triantafyllidis

“Twister became a success when actress Eva Gabor played it with Johnny Carson on television's The Tonight Show on May 3, 1966. The company that produced it, Milton Bradley, was accused by its competitors of selling "sex in a box".”

- Wikipedia

Elevator Mondays is proud to announce Twister, a two person exhibition featuring Filip Kostic and Theo Triantafyllidis. Twister is a site-specific VR installation and game for two players. Inspired by the classic Milton Bradley board game that requires players to use their physical bodies as the playing pieces, Kostic and Triantafyllidis created a VR environment that emphasizes the body of the viewer as the object to be viewed.

In a post-real culture where relationships and intimacy are dominated by social media and dating apps, we find our bodies becoming evermore absorbed into virtual space. Twister is an experimental installation for networking physical bodies through a digital intermediate. Presented in VR, the installation creates uncanny experiences far beyond the limitations of our antiquated notions of “the real”. The apparatus (HTC Vive) provides a digital apparition that guides the minds of the viewers through an infinite non-physical game while their bodies remain limited to the gallery space (an elevator). Disguised as a VR game, Twister functions as a proxy-trap for collaborative performance. By creating digital conditions in which players awkwardly bend, kink, and contort their bodies in physical space, Kostic and Triantafyllidis explore the ever-blurring boundaries between material space and digital space.

Filip Kostic is a new media artist working primarily in sculpture, VR and immersive Technology. Kostic has held solo exhibitions at Rogers Office, Los Angeles; and Art Center college of art and design, Los Angeles. He is an Adjunct Professor of VR and immersive technology at Art Center. Kostic lives and works in Los Angeles.

Theo Triantafyllidis is a new media artist working in sculpture, video, and VR. He has exhibited widely including solo exhibitions at The Breeder Gallery, Athens; Sargent’s Daughters Gallery, New York; and Experimental Digital Arts Gallery, UCLA, Los Angeles. He was a featured artist in Hyper Pavilion at the 2017 Venice Biennale and his work is held in public collections including Rubell Family Collection, Miami; Servais Family Collection, Brussels; and Fondazione Golinelli, Bologna. Triantafyllidis lives and works in Los Angeles.