Avatopology 2.0: 9% Grin, 33% Groove

Building on the first iteration of Avatopology, Frank WANG Yefeng continues his long-term investigation into digital characters, mobility, and “in-between” subjectivities. Avatopology 2.0 examines how digital nomadic labor circulates, transforms, and becomes obscured through decentralized networks of multi-authored image production. Working with digital freelancers on Fiverr, an online marketplace where users commission creative services, Yefeng develops avatars of himself through a process of digital exchange. In the exhibition title, “9%” refers to the 9 animations assembled from digital assets created through this network, while “33%” represents the 33 digital creators who contributed to the project without ever meeting one another. The remaining “58%” points to the invisible labor, resources, and relationships that make a collective project possible but may remain unseen by the audience.

Avatopology 2.0 explores collaborative production through a structured relay of image translation. Beginning with a blurred photograph of Yefeng, each participant receives only the output immediately preceding their own contribution, with individual outputs branching into multiple subsequent interpretations. Rather than a linear sequence of inheritance, the process draws on models of circulation such as Pass the Parcel and Exquisite Corpse, where images are continuously transformed and re-mediated across participants. Moving between two- and three-dimensional forms, this six-stage process reconstitutes Yefeng’s image through various pathways. The nine avatars presented in the exhibition represent the accumulated outcomes of this distributed process.

Throughout the collaboration, the notion of an “original” image becomes increasingly unstable as collective making introduces an element of uncertainty. Identified only by their usernames and current locations, the collaborators respond to the work of a complete stranger while simultaneously constructing the artist’s visual subjectivity through limited online interactions. As images move from one creator to another, authorship remains open and relational. Rather than treating this uncertainty as a constraint, the project embraces it as a space for curiosity and discovery. This openness is further reflected in Yefeng’s approach to the collaborative process. He grants each collaborator the freedom to remake the image through their own visual language, experiences, and creative practices, without providing detailed instructions. Through this process, the project itself becomes a digital object that circulates and is continuously reshaped through networks of people and technologies in the digital realm.

The rest of the installation consists of objects referencing music, books, and other cultural interests associated with each collaborator’s personal life. These objects extend the digital exchanges into the physical space of the gallery, offering fragments of the collaborators’ individual experiences and identities while drawing attention to the relationships that emerge through the project’s distributed process of image-making. The two paintings on the wall aggregate and layer the visual traces of collaboration captured by the artist.

Avatopology 2.0 considers what forms of connection can emerge under the precarious conditions produced by the digital world. By tracing the tensions between opportunity and limitation within online labor infrastructures, the project reveals how digital systems can expand modes of creative production while simultaneously concealing the labor, agency, and forms of participation that make such production possible.

Participating Creators:
Abraham G (Nigeria), Ainuddin D. (Indonesia), Akar Studio (Indonesia), Aleksandra (Ukraine), Anastasia (Netherlands), B. Raccoontoon (Indonesia), Bousselham Kh (Morocco), Chino the goat (Argentina), Dmytro Matiikiv (Slovakia), Doomesia (Indonesia), Ekaterina (Istanbul), Fahmi S. (Indonesia), Frein (Argentina), Gálbano Lealdo (Brazil), Hashmi (Pakistan), Hodaart (United Kingdom), Josh S. (Nigeria), K. Gabor (Hungary), Katia M (Italy), Leah V (South Africa), Leslie Jost (United Kingdom), Lua (Nigeria), Mahdi R (United States), Melvin M (Indonesia), Mh Rakib (Bangladesh), Rauf Valiyev (Azerbaijan), Rozaq (Indonesia), Shane D (United States), Vilan (Indonesia), Wandererkitty (Turkey), Whendies (Indonesia), Zeeshan Mahmood (Pakistan), and Zentangle (Sri Lanka)

This exhibition is curated by Joyce Chung with curatorial assistance from Cole Roberts.

This exhibition is supported by:
Teiger Foundation, Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts, Artadia, and New York Foundation of the Arts