EVENT: STEFFEN KÖHN (MAY 10—23 2024, ONLINE)
Platform
digital video (1920 x 1080, Arri Alexa), color, sound, 16’ 20”, color, sound, 2021, Germany.
Created by Steffen Köhn
Platform draws from documentary interviews with freelancers on online delivery platforms, weaving their real-life experiences with elements from Neal Stephenson’s seminal 1992 cyberpunk novel, Snow Crash, which has gained iconic status in Silicon Valley. The film examines how the dystopian capitalist visions depicted in the novel mirror current capitalist dynamics. The narrative seamlessly blends the true stories of the research participants with fictional scenarios inspired by Snow Crash, creating a cyclical storyline that blurs the lines between documentary and fantasy. This technique plunges viewers into the complexities and paradoxes of modern work environments. Departing from traditional documentary styles, the film stages the drivers’ stories within a sci-fi framework, portraying their daily work struggles, prerogatives, and aspirations. Platform utilizes machinima to juxtapose live-action footage with video game based animations. This stylistic choice not only highlights the fading distinction between work and leisure but also prompts a deeper reflection on immaterial labor and value creation in today’s digital economy.
Steffen Köhn is a filmmaker, video artist, and assistant professor of multimodal anthropology at Aarhus University. He utilizes ethnography to delve into contemporary socio-technical landscapes. Köhn is the author of Mediating Mobility. Visual Anthropology in the Age of Migration (Wallflower Press, 2016). In his video and installation works, Köhn collaborates locally with gig workers, software developers, and science fiction writers to probe alternative models of technological access and power distribution. His works have been exhibited at prestigious venues including the Warsaw Biennial, Academy of the Arts Berlin, Kunsthaus Graz, Vienna Art Week, Hong Gah Museum Taipei, Lulea Biennial, The Photographers’ Gallery, and the ethnographic museums of Copenhagen and Dresden. Additionally, his films have been featured at major international festivals such as the Berlinale, Rotterdam International Film Festival, and the World Film Festival Montreal.
EVENT: ADONIS ARCHONTIDES (APRIL 26—MAY 9 2024, ONLINE)
The Death Trilogy
performance documentation, digital video and audio recorded in The Sims 4, 33’ 05”, 2024, Cyprus
Created by Adonis Archontides
Za woka genava (I think you are hot), Ya gotta wob’ere! Ya gotta wob’ere! (Don’t give up! Keep trying!) and Za woka genava (I think you are hot) form a trilogy in which Archontides delves into the use of video games as a platform for documenting dual performances, those of himself and his avatar, Adonis (Sim), created within the popular simulation game, The Sims 4. This unique collaboration highlights a peculiar interdependence: although Archontides controls the outcomes of their joint endeavors, both entities contribute essential roles to their creative process. These performances unfold under the passive gaze of an audience, drawn into a somewhat sadistic voyeurism. Yet, crucially, Adonis (Sim) remains unaware of his reality as a digital construct, performing actions dictated by Archontides that, while impossible in the real world, are completely feasible within the game’s algorithmic constraints. The Death Trilogy pushes the boundaries of digital life and death, as evidenced in the final moments of each piece. Here, viewers witness Adonis’s resurrection, a thematic echo of the limitless possibilities afforded by simulated environments.
Adonis Archontides is a multidisciplinary artist who studied Illustration & Visual Media at the University of the Arts in London. His works are satirical and introspective; they often investigate the production of identity as a conscious or subconscious process, and the porosity between fiction, reality, and simulation. Part of his research focusing on his namesake Adonis, an ancient Greek nature deity, revolves around the effects of time on the interpretation of myths. An avid gamer, Archontides believes in the artistic potential of video games which often uses as raw material in his artistic practice. He has been collaborating with an avatar of himself created in the popular simulation game The Sims 4, juxtaposing Joseph Campbell’s hero’s journey with an artist’s career trajectory through an episodic narrative. Archontides lives and works in Limassol, Cyprus.
EVENT: GEORGIE ROXBY SMITH (FEBRUARY 2—16 2024, ONLINE)
Blood Paintings
digital video, color, sound, 11’ 06”, 2024, Australia
Created by Georgie Roxby Smith
Georgie Roxby Smith’s Blood Paintings series merges digital gaming spaces and physical art. Each piece comprises three distinct components: a machinima documenting repetitive violence against GTA V pedestrians, intimate selfies showcasing the finished abstract paintings that violence yields, and hybrid digital/physical prints combining in-game imagery with organic artistic styles. This unique, multi-format presentation offers insight into both the meticulous creative process and the provocative contrast between clinical virtual acts and tactile human artistry.
Georgie Roxby Smith is a pioneering digital artist who uses gaming, AI, video, and performance to probe modern identity and reality. Her work focuses on representing marginalized groups, especially women, in online environments. Artworks like The Fall Girl and 99 Problems [WASTED] expose violence against female video game characters, critiquing the misogyny embedded in gaming worlds. Smith’s bold, confrontational, socially-engaged art has exhibited globally and earned prestigious grants and residencies. As virtual and actual boundaries blur, her practice reveals hard truths about identity and systemic bias persisting digitally. Blending emerging tech and mass media, Smith dispels notions of liberation in our increasingly visualized world. Her immersive works harbor the probing questions that will propel digital art to its next avant-garde evolution.
