The Hereafter Institute | LACMA

The Hereafter Institute

Gabriel Barcia-Colombo

Visitors to the Hereafter Institute encountered an artistic exploration about how we deal with death in the digital age. Each participant took part in a consultation to discuss the planning of their digital afterlife. Specialists discussed multiple digital preservation options, including 3D body scanning, wearable memorialization, and the embedding of personal data into everyday objects.

From the Blog: Art, Death, and Memorial...

Gabriel Barcia-Colombo came into the Lab program, which incubates new artist projects, interested in how cultures memorialize the dead and how technology is altering our relationship to death and commemoration. That course of investigation led him to a concept he called the Hereafter Institute, part performance, part sculpture, through which he is inviting audience members to participate in rituals exploring the digital afterlife.

Hereafter Institute logo. © Gabriel Barcia-Colombo

From the Hereafter Institute performance, 2016. © Gabriel Barcia-Colombo

From the Hereafter Institute performance, 2016. © Gabriel Barcia-Colombo

From the Hereafter Institute performance, 2016. © Gabriel Barcia-Colombo

From the Hereafter Institute performance, 2016. © Gabriel Barcia-Colombo

From the Hereafter Institute performance, 2016. © Gabriel Barcia-Colombo

From the Hereafter Institute performance, 2016. © Gabriel Barcia-Colombo

Screenshot from the virtual reality component of the Hereafter Institute, 2016. © Gabriel Barcia-Colombo

Screenshot from the virtual reality component of the Hereafter Institute, 2016. © Gabriel Barcia-Colombo

Screenshot from the virtual reality component of the Hereafter Institute, 2016. © Gabriel Barcia-Colombo

Screenshot from the virtual reality component of the Hereafter Institute, 2016. © Gabriel Barcia-Colombo

Screenshot from the virtual reality component of the Hereafter Institute, 2016. © Gabriel Barcia-Colombo

Screenshot from the virtual reality component of the Hereafter Institute, 2016. © Gabriel Barcia-Colombo

From the Hereafter Institute performance, 2016. © Gabriel Barcia-Colombo

From the Hereafter Institute performance, 2016. © Gabriel Barcia-Colombo

the mourning locket designed for the Hereafter Institute performance, 2016. © Gabriel Barcia-Colombo

the mourning locket designed for the Hereafter Institute performance, 2016. © Gabriel Barcia-Colombo

Gabriel Barcia-Colombo's ID card used in the Hereafter Institute performance, 2016. © Gabriel Barcia-Colombo

Gabriel Barcia-Colombo's ID card used in the Hereafter Institute performance, 2016. © Gabriel Barcia-Colombo

Visit the Hereafter Institute Website

Conversation Transcript: Digital Memory and Memorials211.54 KB

Other Project Documents9.7 MB

Gabriel Barcia-Colombo is a mixed media artist whose work focuses on collections, memorialization and the act of leaving one's digital imprint for the next generation. His work takes the form of video sculptures, immersive performances, large scale projections and vending machines that sell human DNA. His work plays upon this modern exigency in our culture to chronicle, preserve and wax nostalgic, an idea which Barcia-Colombo renders visually by “collecting” human portraits on video.

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