Marina Abramovic goes digital for new London performance

[February 20, 2019]  LONDON (Reuters) - Artist Marina Abramovic, famed for her endurance performances, questioning of physical and mental boundaries and intimate interactions with gallery visitors, appears as an augmented reality avatar in a new show in London's Serpentine Gallery.

In "The Life", visitors don special spatial computing headpieces allowing them to view a 19 minute performance by 72-year-old Abramovic as they move through the gallery.

"I like to radiate from my own body certain energy to the viewer. So that's what I want, that kind of connection which is really material because I am there and not there in the same time," said Belgrade-born Abramovic.

"If I can really achieve this that means my performance doesn't finish with, with my physical body but can also actually exist in (a) virtual body."

Over 30 moving cameras were used to create the avatar and it took 10 hours of footage to process a minute of the performance.

Abramovic's endurance performance 512 Hours drew almost 130,000 visitors to the Serpentine in 2014.

"The Life" runs until Sunday Feb. 24.

(Reporting by Reuters television; Writing by Alexandra Hudson; Editing by Alison Williams)

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