Through a cyber-feminist tale of dreams, post-apocalyptic cities, and queer love, DENTAXUVIA – a Mixed Reality Performance – follows the supernatural journey of a duo and their avatars into the quantum and vast depths of the infinite potential of the future. The performance fuses the unique artistic visions of Huntrezz Janos and Antigoni Tsagkaropoulou, utilising technology, sculpture, and poetry to conjure a fragmented futuristic scene of cyberpunk insurgents. In this sci-fi explosion of visuals, the tangible meets the intangible as Huntrezz and Antigoni perform in wearable sculptures and as avatars in their virtual world. The result is an act of queer resistance that sheds their old skins and identities, empowering them to reclaim agency in the face of oppressive regimes and igniting belief that anyone can do the same.
Antigoni Tsagkaropoulou
Antigoni Tsagkaropoulou (b. 1993) is a multidisciplinary artist from Athens, Greece based in Los Angeles, California. Their work spans video, installation, performance, and sculpture, forming experimental, immersive, interactive, and cinematic environments. Their world-body-building practice centers on themes of softness, deviance, kinship, affect and community building as resistance tools for a queer transfeminist universe. They are Inspired by sci-fi literature, speculative fiction, queer poetry, feminist cinema, creating radically fluffy hubs for unruly presents and hope-punk futures.
Antigoni is currently a Ph.D. candidate in Media Arts and Practice at USC School of Cinematic Arts. They also hold an MFA in Media Arts from UCLA School of the Arts and Architecture, and a BFA in Sculpture from the Stavros Niarchos Foundation.
Visit: antigonibunny.com
REDCAT NOW Festival 2023 - World Premiere
Dentaxuvia began as a mixed reality live performance, which premiered at REDCAT Disney CalArts Theatre as part of the 20th Annual New Original Works (NOW) Festival in 2023. This groundbreaking performance fused the unique artistic visions of Huntrezz Janos and Antigoni Tsagkaropoulou, utilizing technology, sculpture, and poetry to conjure a fragmented futuristic scene of cyberpunk insurgents.
In this sci-fi explosion of visuals, the tangible met the intangible as the artists performed in wearable sculptures and as avatars in their virtual world. The result was an act of queer resistance that transported audiences on a supernatural journey, igniting belief that anyone can shed old skins and reclaim agency in the face of oppressive regimes.
Love Machines - UCLA DMA 2024 MFA Thesis Exhibition
Following the success at REDCAT, Dentaxuvia was featured as part of Antigoni's MFA thesis exhibition at UCLA's Design Media Arts program. This iteration transformed the theatrical performance into an interactive installation, allowing visitors to engage directly with the virtual world and avatars that had previously been confined to the stage.
The thesis exhibition, titled Love Machines, was the culminating presentation of the 2024 UCLA Design Media Arts MFA cohort.
Onassis ONX - Manhattan Studio Development
As members of Onassis ONX with Onassis USA, Antigoni and Huntrezz went on to further develop the work in their Manhattan studio facilities. This residency period allowed for significant technological advancement, including the development of Unreal Engine components and extensive motion capture sessions for the interactive video game elements.
During their time at ONX, the artists showcased their progress with the Unreal project and recorded motion capture sessions while also presenting the NPC AI interactions live to a New York audience. This iteration marked a crucial evolution in the project's technical sophistication and narrative complexity. In addition to working in the ONX studio, the artists had the chance to record and test their work in front of the Large scale LED screen at NYU ITP's brooklyn navy yard location.
Telematic Media Arts & Gray Area
San Francisco, 2024-2025
November 16th, 2024 – January 18th, 2025
Co-Presented by Transfer Gallery with support from Onassis ONX
At Telematic Media Arts and Gray Area, Dentaxuvia reached its most expansive iteration to date. The installation transformed the gallery into an immersive environment where visitors could experience the post-apocalyptic landscape through multiple interactive modalities. In DENTAXUVIA Chapter 1: Corporeal Conversations, the player is transported into virtual embodiments of the artists, Antigoni Tsagkaropoulou and Huntrezz Janos trapped in a post-apocalyptic landscape. How did we get here? Which are our real bodies? What is happening to the boundaries of our physical, virtual, mental, and spiritual realities? How can we escape this dystopia? These questions invite players into complex dialogues about subjectivity and embodiment in a world where traditional boundaries have been blurred or dissolved.
Starting with more questions than answers, players encounter numerous intelligences that occupy this trans-corporeal wasteland. Fires that learn as they burn, hypercute-comrade cockroaches who yearn for affection and know the deepest secrets of the landscape, and a multitude of alternate selves from different dimensions- like a little "alien" Antigoni, and a Huntrezz-Butterfly (among many others!) who are all there to help you explore the space, and maybe even help you escape it, through interspecies collaboration, and the power of queer love.
The exhibition featured the swing from the original live performance installed as a resting seat for audience members, while the open world video game was projected onto a wall, allowing gallery visitors to come and play. The wearable body extensions and costumes were displayed alongside two large-scale portrait screens that functioned as full-body AR filters, transforming visitors into the artists' avatars by tracking and mirroring their movements with AI-enabled webcams.
The culmination of the exhibition was a large-scale performance at Gray Area's Grand Theater in the Mission District on Friday, January 10th, 2025. This performance brought together all elements of the project for a final presentation that showcased the full scope of Dentaxuvia's evolution. The exhibition received coverage in Artforum, Artillery Magazine, and SF Arts, with tickets available through Do The Bay and Gray Area's ticketing system. More information about Telematic Media Arts and their innovative programming can be found through their gallery.
UCR Digital Capture Show - Downtown Riverside Performance
As part of the UCR Digital Capture Show, Dentaxuvia made its debut in downtown Riverside, bringing the post-apocalyptic narrative to a new audience in Southern California. This performance showcased the project's adaptability to different venues and contexts, demonstrating how the interactive elements could engage diverse communities.
The downtown Riverside iteration featured live performances with the biomechanical jumping stilts, interactive gaming sessions, and real-time AI character demonstrations. The UCR show was made possible through support from LACMA, the Getty Foundation, and Los Angeles PST, highlighting the institutional recognition of the project's artistic and technological innovation.
This performance further solidified Dentaxuvia's role as a traveling multimedia experience, capable of transforming any space into an immersive post-apocalyptic landscape where audiences could explore questions of embodiment, artificial intelligence, and the boundaries between virtual and physical reality.
Rip Space - OPEN WORLD
After making significant progress since the first iteration at REDCAT, it was time to bring Dentaxuvia back to Huntrezz's hometown of Los Angeles. Rip Space proved to be the perfect venue for this homecoming—a hackerspace where the digital arts community could fully appreciate the technological and artistic evolution of the work.
The evolved performance at Rip Space allowed the LA digital arts community to explore the post-apocalyptic landscape that Antigoni and Huntrezz had created, in what felt like a homecoming of this interstellar exploration. The intimate setting of the hackerspace provided the perfect environment for the community to engage deeply with the interactive elements and experience the full scope of the project's development.
This iteration featured live performances with the biomechanical jumping stilts, interactive gameplay sessions where audience members could control the avatars and explore the open world of the video game, and real-time demonstrations of the AI characters responding to player interactions. The show showcased the full evolution of Dentaxuvia from its theatrical origins to its current form as an immersive interactive experience.
Dentaxuvia gameplay Video
Interactive Video Game Component
The video game component of Dentaxuvia allows players to explore the post-apocalyptic landscape as the artists' avatars, engaging with AI characters and discovering the narrative through immersive gameplay. For comprehensive game documentation and development details, players can access detailed information about the game mechanics, character interactions, and world-building elements.
