Rudy Falagan (he/it) earned his BFA in Fine Arts at the University of Southern California’s Roski School of Art and Design, with a ceramics and intermedia emphasis. His practice takes his heavy involvement in internet culture and intersects it with interests in his own identity and health, both physical and mental. He uses humor, memes, avatars, and online communities to express statements he is too fearful to say on his own, all hyper aware that the digital space he uses as his haven is one that is under constant surveillance. His work has been shown at François Ghebaly Gallery and the Roski Master of Fine Arts Gallery.
Damn, Bitch You Live Like This? is an in-depth look at the artist’s relationship to his severe Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder alongside its Sim’s relationship to the artificial intelligence that takes over when the video game The Sims 4 allows for full autonomy. Within the show, two pieces highlight the parallels between errors in the game’s AI alongside mental difficulties with intrusive thoughts and exposure therapy - though also highlighting an avatar’s path to inevitable death alongside the artist’s path to eventual recovery.
Untitled (Daily Logs) consists of minute-by-minute updates of the artist’s daily actions alongside equally detailed logs of its Sim’s actions with a recreation of its home and roommates as the in-game artificial intelligence dictates the avatar’s actions while he observes and presses no controls. The logs are then uploaded regularly to a public website for anyone to read.
4.7/Day 13 takes the date April 7th as well as the Sim’s 13th day of full autonomy and presents them as two 24-hour videos that reflect in real time the actions typed down in the daily logs.
Thank you to Andrew Campbell, Sherin Guirguis, Jennifer West, Jon Wingo, Thomas Müller, Samantha Levy, Ryan Davis, and Megan Roy and the rest of the staff at Rogers Behavioral Health.
