At FACT Liverpool, artist duo ONLY SLIME – Claudia Cox and Tobi Pfeil – invite audiences into AFTERLIFE, an immersive world where mythology, gaming, opera and digital technology collide.
Developed from Claudia’s near-death experience in 2021, the work explores the relationship between body and avatar, reality and virtual worlds, and what happens when we give up our sense of control.
Through motion capture, visitors become part of the work, moving through a world that is controlled not simply by the artists, but by the programme itself.
We spoke to ONLY SLIME about the experience that inspired AFTERLIFE, the world they have created, and what happens when we surrender to it.
AFTERLIFE was developed in response to a near-death experience Claudia had in 2021. Can you tell us about that experience and how it became the starting point for the world you’ve created?
Claudia: I was in rehearsals for a new show, where an acrobatics accident happened and I fell headfirst to the floor from a height. In that moment, I had a near death experience – where time stopped, I was surrounded by infinite darkness and space, and I felt perfectly at peace. I left my physical body and came back.
The time after was very hard and confusing, I spent a year recovering and contemplating what had happened and why it had happened. This pondering and research into near death experiences and life beyond death, fuelled a lot of conversations with Tobi.
Tobi: We were generally interested in this idea that there is agency or what spiritual people call a higher self interfacing with life on earth through our bodies – similarly to how you interface with an avatar in a VR game. And then we started to expand on this idea and build a narrative around it, where a live motion capture setup became the allegory for the interface between the ‘higher’ and physical self.
You describe AFTERLIFE as existing “between gamespace, mythological death, and reality.” What can you explore in that in-between space that you couldn’t in a conventional gallery or theatre?
ONLY SLIME: All mediums impose constraints on the content they contain. Since AFTERLIFE exists inside an interactive setup, with real-physical movement interacting with a virtual world – the link between the physical and the virtual becomes accentuated. Highlighting this connection opens a space where a form of contemporary storytelling can occur. It was our goal that certain emotions and experiences which normally can only be felt in virtual environments, such as games or VR experiences could be translated to a physical stage space.
There’s a constant shift in power between the creator, the player and the avatar in AFTERLIFE. How do you think those relationships change as someone moves through the world – and who is really in control?
ONLY SLIME: The piece itself – as a program – is in control. The program pushes us as performers, the audience and the avatars through time and experience. When making the piece, we tried to give up control and let foreign impulses enter and do their work through us. When a body perceives itself as autonomous, but then realises it is heavily controlled by a higher force, a form of transcendental surrender occurs. We tried to highlight and submit to this experience both in process and in content of the piece.
You bring Greek mythology into this world alongside gaming, internet culture and opera. Do you have a favourite Greek mythological character – and what is it about them that interests you?
ONLY SLIME: The Greek myths are archetypical and serve as foundations of our culture in how we understand storytelling, human behaviour and spiritual growth through overcoming challenges. They’re interesting in many ways, but for us maybe especially in being allegorical, fatalistic and without any sugar coating on top! We don’t have a favourite character but Plato’s cave allegory served as a central blueprint for exploring the world we sense, and the world beyond that.
What changes when a gallery visitor stops observing and instead inhabits the work through motion capture?
ONLY SLIME: They become part of the piece and the universe, and need to surrender a part of themselves to submit to its programming.
Has making AFTERLIFE changed how you think about being alive?
ONLY SLIME: Yes! It’s opened up our interest in what lies beyond, beneath, behind, ahead of being human on planet earth.
Find out more about ONLY SLIME & on @only.sliime
Title image by Rob Battersby
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