A response to the ever-expanding interference of the digital world, The Cast of the Invisible, a CGI animated short film, prods at the line between one’s virtual and physical existence. Inspired by how the identities of motion-capture actors are lost beneath digitally imposed animation, the film stars W.A.I., a motion-capture-suit-clad virtual clone of the artist. 

The Cast of the Invisible follows several days in the life of W.A.I., a motion-capture actor, as they descend into existential confusion. Plagued by the consequences of a vocation endowing them with purpose by stripping them of their individuality, W.A.I. cannot escape a fundamental demand to exist in mimetic performance as anyone but themselves. Even after leaving the film studio, W.A.I., still costumed in the black motion-capture suit, asks their robot lover “how should I act?” in a moment of intimacy. Evocative of a Goffmanian “total institution,” W.A.I.’s ubiquitous uniform pervading their private life speaks to the metaphysical reductionism that inherently cages any digitally reproduced being within a stunted identity. A human clone tasked with laying the unseen bones of other made-up characters in an artificial world, W.A.I. is a slice of a person designed to be everyone and no one.  

Thus, The Cast of the Invisible is a direct reference to the liminal role of motion-capture actors who symbolize being both “in-between” the real and virtual worlds yet never fully present or autonomous in either one. Elaborating on motifs of an infinitely mutable identity in the contemporary digital context, W.A.I. now must navigate the ontological implications of being a real-world replica whose purpose is to be digitally reproduced. Through the work, Lau questions the role of humans as technology progresses. What will it mean to be human? What will it mean to be a clone? Which world will define our identities? 

The Cast of the Invisible, 4K Single-Channel CGI Animation, 13’15”, 2024