Respawn: The Scourge at Rush Rhees is part of an ongoing site-specific installation project by Krista Hoefle.
In many video games characters or avatars that die are respawned in another area of the game map. Respawn is a physical space installation that recreates this “instancing” of game avatars, and recontextualizes actual spaces into virtual game maps. Sculptural versions of Hoefle’s World of Warcraft character Kryzzik are clustered at the Gallery at the Art & Music Library at the University of Rochester’s River Campus (a respawn point) and an equal number of “dead” or failed versions of
Kryzzik are scattered in Rettner Hall and Sage Art Center.
Krista Hoefle employs hybridized media in the creation of viewer-interactive environments or installations; she uses digital, sculptural, photographic, printrelated, and time-based media. Interaction often plays out through existing videogames in amplified play-conditions that she designs. She subverts or adapts existing gaming platforms in order to alter game play and typically implicates the viewer as a part of the work. (Cyber)feminism and the genres of science fiction and horror (the abject, mind-body dichotomy, life extension ethics, and cyborg identity) are among Hoefle’s primary research and production interests.
Hoefle will present an Artist Lecture in Morey Hall 321 at 5:00PM on Thursday March 27th. She will lead a workshop on paper constructions and the use of related software and printmaking processes on Friday March 28th. Participation in the workshop is free but registration is necessary. Contact Stephanie Ashenfelder <stephanie.ashenfelder@rochester.edu>
Krista Hoefle received her MFA in Sculpture from Penn State University, and her BFA in Furniture Design from the Savannah College of Art and Design. Krista is an Associate Professor of Art; she teaches at Saint Mary’s College and resides in South Bend Indiana. She also resides on the Emerald Dream server in World of Warcraft performing and playing as Kryzzik, a Goblin Mage. In addition to running the Moreau Art Galleries on Saint Mary’s campus, Hoefle teaches courses in sculpture, design, and special topics in new media, video, and theory/criticism. Course titles include “Alternative Mapmaking and Psychogeography” and “Cyberfeminism_Creativ-ity_Connectivity.” Hoefle’s installations, animations, works on paper, and videos have appeared at national and international venues. Recent exhibitions and screenings include a two-person exhibition with Edie Fake at Tryk Tryk Tryk Gallery (Copenhagen, Denmark), a solo exhibition at Packer Schopf Gallery (Chicago, IL) and X at Mixed Greens Gallery (NYC). Her work will be a part of a video compilation Disruptive Film: Everyday Resistance to Power edited by Sherry Milner, Ernie Larson and Jill Godmilow.
Respawn: The Scourge at Rush Rhees, the accompanying lecture and workshop is funded through the Department of Art and Art History and the Humanities Project, University of Rochester School of Arts and Sciences.