Bye bye humans

Amanda E. Metzger holds a BA in Media Arts from Zurich University of the Arts and an MFA in Fine Arts from LUCA School of Arts Brussels. In her work, she explores network theory by experimenting with decentralising herself and appropriates technology to exploit and reimagine societal constructs. Her practice spans across multiple mediums, such as installations and videos as well as objects and photographs. Her work has been exhibited, amongst others, in Leipzig, Brussels, Basel and Zurich.

Ever, 2023

The installation Ever contains AI-generated diary entries written by a GPT-3 model fine-tuned on the artist’s diaries from the past thirteen years. Like this, the artist is able to give insight into her secrets, thoughts and desires without revealing the actual truth. By creating NFTs with her memories, she offers the opportunity to create a never ending story of herself, potentially keeping people company beyond her lifetime. The diary entries can be generated through the website www.ever.metzger.love by the public and are saved on the blockchain.

The Kiss, 2021

The video shows the artist kissing a deepfakes-double of herself with the algorithm sometimes more and sometimes less successful at understanding where the face to cover starts and where it will start melting into the other’s.

The works of Jannes Snyers (Belgium, 1997) relate to the realms of the virtual and the real, and our own connections to them. The ways in which these realms can coexist, interplay or merge with each other is of his interest. Starting off from the idea that people join narratives to expound their own individual experiences in a collective way, Snyers creates fragile intermedia arrangements using motifs originating from the imaginary, the symbolic and the actual. These arrangements often hold hidden emergent properties, resulting in a visual language that is both playful yet secretive, while echoing the sensation of discovering fragments of a with feedback induced cryptic memoir.

How do you translate the tactility and flexibility of textiles into a virtual image? Michaela Armani experiments with light, monochrome and colour images, digital and analogue and everything in between. She investigates the human-computer-coding relationship. This research creates a language that connects the digital with the haptic in a game of chance and control. Through this, Michaela challenges our sense of reality; whereby the virtual increas- ingly intervenes in our everyday lives. New perspectives on our relationship with the environ- ments in which we move arise from the immaterial. Additionally, this research also questions our need for a physical relationship with matter. The virtual image reflects the real image – as if it cannot be filtered out.

Cesar Vromman (24) holds a master's degree in theater at KASK School of Arts in Ghent, while Quinten Vanagt (24) holds a master's degree in multimedia art from the same institution. Both artists are from Brussels and share a long-standing personal and artistic bond, creating a deep creative synergy between them. They started 'Futures Lost', a research project that aims to push the boundaries of their artistic exploration. While remaining in dialogue through various other artistic and activist projects, they continue their passion for subversive experiences.

Futures lost

Exploring the profound paradigm shifts and dualities brought forth by the digital era. Delving into the enchanting and disenchanting forces propelling our contemporary world. Through this artistic research, we invite you to engage in a reflective journey challenging established structures and fostering dialogue. 'Futures Lost' constitutes the second chapter of a broader research project, transforming from a live theatrical performance into a video installation.

Mischa Dols was born in Amsterdam in 1996. After working in the Dutch film industry for several years, Dols moved to Brussels in 2017 to attend LUCA Art Academy (Sint-Lukas).

In Brussels, Mischa explored the art side of cinema by making short films and installations. In 2019, Dols was awarded a fine arts scholarship at the Korea National University of Arts in Seoul.

Currently, Mischa is developing my experimental film practice, trying to critically merge cinema and online visual languages.

Online Bodies

Online Bodies seeks to explore the manifestation of the body in virtual spaces. The film consists of seven short non-causal parts, each showing a different angle on the online body. The film passes along bodies in transition: a deepfaked porn actor, a 3D model that wishes to be reproduced, a group of genetically modified humans that live inside an alien, four friends discussing cyborg modifications, a body that cannot get up an escalator. Collectively, they highlight the space in between the physical and virtual.