Site Salons – Sian Fan and Gabrielle de la Puente (The White Pube)

Site Salons is a space for open conversations between artists, thinkers and audiences. Hosted by artists and guests, these discussion groups pose questions around artistic practice and navigating our new normal. Places are very limited to ensure the opportunity for everyone in the event to have space to contribute to the discussion, so please consider this when booking. 

Critic Gabrielle de la Puente (The White Pube) will use this discussion to interview and introduce artist Sian Fan on the occasion of her new commission for Site Gallery. In Phantom, Fan has produced an interactive 3D environment in which three ghostly video game characters dance on a loop. Fan used motion capture to record her own movements which were replicated in the virtual space – a strange island under moonlight where glitched greenery and impossible flowers have grown around each performance. 

The pair will discuss the artist’s inspirations, the move from art student to arts professional, and her experience of developing Phantom during the pandemic. The interview will also look in depth at the different aspects of Fan’s creation, covering the design of the environment and choreography, the narrative the game embodies, and where Phantom sits in relation to video game design and player experience. Sian and Gabrielle will also reflect on the wider context of representation in digital industries, our strange new virtual/physical reality and how the digital can be an extension of reality.

Gabrielle de la Puente is a critic and curator from and based in Liverpool. She writes about video games on The White Pube, and also runs OUTPUT gallery in Liverpool City Centre.

Image: Sian Fan, Phantom