Freya Björg Olafsson
On Saturday April 25th from 3pm to 5pm join Freya Björg Olafson at Deiglan Gilfélagið for an informal sharing of past video work with a short live performance excerpt at 4pm.
While staying at the Gil Residency, Freya has been working towards a new performance ‘Body Double’, which deploys live machine learning motion capture (MoCap) techniques and explores the intentional mis-use of AI MoCap tools. Olafson is extending research that began in April 2025, following her participation in the ten-day Choreographic Coding Lab (CCL) hosted by Motion Bank and the A&E Lab in the UK which focused on AI/machine learning in choreographic practice. Olafson’s curiosity in integrating real-time AI motion capture into live performance using only a webcam comes from virtual YouTubers (VTubers) who real-time animate digital avatars to embody fictional personas. Online identity and performance, engaging through and with technology has been central to Freya’s work since 2006.
About the artist:
Freya Björg Olafson is an intermedia artist who works with video, audio, animation, motion capture, XR, painting, and performance. Olafson has exhibited and performed internationally at the Bauhaus Archiv (Berlin), Ochoymedio (Ecuador), LUDWIG Museum (Budapest), and Reykjavík Art Museum / Sequences Real Time Media Arts Festival (Iceland). Olafson has benefitted from residencies, most notably through EMPAC – Experimental Media & Performing Arts Center (New York), Oboro (Montreal), and Counterpulse (San Francisco).
Previous awards and recognitions include the Buddies in Bad Times Vanguard Award for her work AVATAR in 2010, becoming a ‘Sobey Art Award’ longlist awardee in 2020, as well as being selected for the ‘Lumen Prize for Art & Technology’ longlist in 2021 and receiving the OFFTA Prize in 2025 for her work Olafson’s work “MÆ- Motion Aftereffect”. In 2021, Olafson’s solo performance ‘AVATAR’ (premiered in 2009) was published as a score / script for Playwrights Canada Press’ anthology on digital theatre. Olafson has written a short chapter about virtual animation and motion capture techniques in ‘MÆ-Motion Aftereffect’ that will be published in the Bloomsbury Encyclopedia of Animation Studies in late 2025.
From 2006 – 2018, Olafson was a part of the ‘núna now’ Festival in Manitoba which generated exchange amongst contemporary artists across Iceland and Canada. In 2024, Olafson collaborated as movement director with seven dancers, five from The Royal Winnipeg Ballet and two independent artists, for Noam Gonick’s project ‘Regulation of Desire’, a five-channel video installation commissioned by the Canadian Museum of Human Rights / LGBT Purge Fund. The work is currently on view until February 2026.
From 2017 – 2021, Olafson was Assistant Professor in Screendance within the Department of Dance at York University in Toronto. Since July 2021, Olafson has been an Assistant Professor in Digital Media at the University of Manitoba School of Art. Olafson holds an MFA in New Media from the Transart Institute / Donau Universität.
