Battle Royale

Battle Royale, is part of an ongoing, in-depth, and long-term exploration of the relationship between Gen Z, gaming, and new technologies. Drawing on the visual nostalgia of the Internet and the lo-fi trends in youth-driven “-core” movements, the artist presents a VR experience that delves into feelings of entrapment, bullying, and suffocation. A kind of dramatic showcase set within liminal virtual spaces and referred-performative shows. Through pure self-portraits and detailed depictions of young adults — some in aseptic environments, others captured mid-game — Sasso prompts us to reflect on a renewed relationship with the body, marked by both confidence and vulnerability, presence and absence, juxtaposed with aspirations and divergences that involve playful avatars, escapism, and imagination. The choice to employ a nonlinear narrative, suspended between understanding and confusion, between virtual and real, and its revelation of the process and hidden elements of creation, symbolically suggests a profound and contemporary communicative gap. What is virtual in the real, and what is real in the virtual?