THE OUTCAST OF THE UNIVERSE
The Outcast of the Universe (Part 1) is a trailer for a film that does not exist and the first installment in a twelve part series that builds a portrait of Los Angeles through randomness, repetition, and reinvention. Each film begins with a GPS coordinate generated by AI, disconnected from human bias and selecting a location without narrative intent. From each of these sites, a fictional character emerges: a person inspired by Nathaniel Hawthorne’s Wakefield, someone who disappears from their life and lingers unseen on its periphery.
The first film takes place at Dockweiler Beach, a liminal stretch of coast beneath LAX flight paths. Its pacing and tone borrow from the trailer for Magnolia, using that familiar Hollywood cadence to introduce a figure shaped by both cinematic archetype and machine logic. The voiceover is melancholic, observational, and timed to visual fragments that explore identity as performance, erasure, and return.
This project uses AI not to simulate humanity, but to interrogate it. Each film is a collaboration between algorithmic randomness and human interpretation, revealing how stories of selfhood, like AI output, are unstable variations on a theme. Through unfamiliar locations and quietly recurring characters, The Outcast of the Universe offers a counter portrait of Los Angeles, not the city of spectacle, but a landscape of disappearances, muted transformations, and intimate fictions shaped by chance.
Tools Used: • ChatGPT (OpenAI): Story and narrative development • Sora: Generated cinematic video scenes from stills and prompts • Kling: Video rendering with visual overlays and stylized textures • Eleven Labs: Voiceover narration generated using custom pacing and tone • Mubert: AI-generated music composition
Short Bio
Elizabeth Withstandley is a research driven multidisciplinary artist working in video installation, photography, and community based projects. Originally from Cape Cod, she currently lives and works in Los Angeles. Her work explores identity, time, and collective experience through layered storytelling and sound. She is the cofounder of Locust Projects in Miami and Prospect Art in Los Angeles.
Withstandley’s work has been exhibited internationally, including in the Smithsonian’s Recovering Voices Program and the Experimental Humanities Collaborative Network at Bard’s To Be Named exhibition, and in solo presentations at the Brookline Arts Center (2025), Antenna Gallery (2022), and the Athens Institute of Contemporary Art (2022). Her work has also been featured in group exhibitions at the Adelaide Festival Centre (2019, Australia), Haus Kunst Mitte (2023, Germany), York Art Gallery (2023, UK), and the Museum of Contemporary Art North Miami.
She has participated in residencies at the Arctic Circle Residency (2024, Svalbard), the Arvo Pärt Center (2023, Estonia), and AIRIE (2021, Everglades National Park). Withstandley has received support from the Foundation for Contemporary Arts and was a finalist for the Hopper Prize (2020), the Reclaim Award (2021), and Fondation François Schneider’s Contemporary Talent Award (2025).
Website: https://www.withstandley.com/