Hallucination, mental illness, doppelgänger and artificial intelligence – these concepts all congeal into the exhibition’s namesake centerpiece film-work, The Afterlife of Rosy Leavers. It introduces the viewer to Rosy’s life story: early fascination with spirals, experiences with hallucinatory psychedelics, schizophrenic episodes, joining Socialist Patients’ Collective (SPK), and ultimately uploading her consciousness to cyberspace and thereby living her life as an animated character. The film starts with found footages that range from Dadaist cinema to early Fleischer studio animations, and ends with an animation of Rosy’s avatar meandering in cyberspace and being molested by a panda-headed man. The exploration of digital consciousness and virtual reality is an important progression of Su’s artistic practice, which had long investigated the limits of the mind- body duality in man-organic and man-bionic,prosthetic hybrids.

Angela Su received a degree in biochemistry in Canada before pursuing visual arts. By adopting existing scientific belief systems, Angela creates works that prompt us to contemplate our own being, our inscription in space and in time. Her biological drawings often combine the precision of scientific sketches with a mythical sense of aesthetic to challenge the audience’s visual sensory on the pleasure of pain. Not only has Angela been interested in exploring the perception and imagery of the body, through her performance-based works such as “One-Woman-Apartment” (2008) and “The Hartford Girl and Other Stories” (2012), she continuously investigate the tensionof the artist’s dualistic state of being when under physical endangerment or distress. Angela’s works have been exhibited in the 2nd CAFAM Biennale, 17th Biennale of Sydney, Artists’ Film International 2014/2015, Rossi & Rossi and Saatchi Gallery in London.