The project is a collaboration between the South Korean artist TZUSOO and the Berlin-based artist and composer SOMMERFELD aka Artur Sommerfeld. It consists of a sound installation and various video works. The videos were created and animated by TZUSOO. SOMMERFELD created the sound for the videos by recording her real voice in his studio and at the same time her facial expressions were filmed using special software - TZUSOO used this data to animate the face of Aimy.
SOMMERFELD did the sound design and edited and manipulated the original voice to create a new voice for Aimy.
A symbiosis of human, cyborg and singular virtual life.
"Aimy's Melancholy (2021)" constitutes an expansive endeavor delving into the singularly virtual life of Aimy, a prominent K-pop vocalist and a renowned virtual influencer initially conceived by TZUSOO. Aimy's aspiration involves a reconfiguration of its very essence, marking the initial strides towards assuming an activist role. Taking cues from Donna Haraway and her seminal Cyborg Manifesto, Aimy critically examines its digital being, embarking on a quest to unearth the prospect of liberation from its earthly physical confines.
Exhibitions
- (coming up) 19. Jul. - 04. Aug., Calm and Punk Gallery, Tokyo, Japan, 2024
- Right to Mother, Hessel Museum of Art, New York, USA, 2023
- Honey, Beta World Is Over Soon, Soma Art Space 700, Berlin, Germany, 2022
- The Most Brilliant Moments for You, GMOMA, Gyung-gi Modern Art Museum, South Korea, 2022
- Mix[image] Verse, Space So, Seoul, South Korea, 2022
- «잠재감각:Cryptesthesia», Baeryeom's House, Seoul, South Korea, 2022
- Summer Show, Kang Contemporary, Berlin, Germany, 2022
- This Time Is Different, Kunstbezirk, Stuttgart, Germany, 2022
- Kunstmuseum Stuttgart, Germany, 2022
- The Last Things Before The Last, HITE Collection, Seoul, South Korea, 2022
- Aimy's Melancholy, Electro Putere Gallery, Craiova, Romania, 2021
Long Time No See
Soundinstallation by SOMMERFELD
00:05:00
with recordings of TZUSOO's body
Soundinstallation - part of the exhibition "Honey, Beta World Is Over Soon" by TZUSOO at SOMA Art Space Berlin, 2022
SOMMERFELD created the sound installation "Long Time No See" for the exhibition "Honey, Beta World Is Over Soon" by TZUSOO at Soma Art Space 700 in Berlin. Mixed from real recordings of TZUSOO's heartbeat, voice and other body noises manipulated by him and SOMMERFELD's musical composition and sound design.
SOMMERFELD's interpretation of the fluid transitions of virtual and human life in a very likely future resonates in a self-contained soundscape that draws you in.
What would it sound like if virtual life could detect, understand and perhaps even feel human emotions?
The Cyborg Manifesto
Video with Sound
00:10:41
Text (EN) / Donna J. Haraway(1985), A Cyborg Manifesto, Socialist Review
Text (KR) / 도나 J. 해러웨이(1985), 사이보그 선언, 해러웨이 선언문, 황희선 옮김, 책세상, 2019
Video / TZUSOO
Sound / SOMMERFELD
By means of Aimy Moon, a dually distinguished virtual influencer and virtual activist, "The Cyborg Manifesto (2021)" engages in a discourse surrounding a publication penned in 1985 by Donna J. Haraway. In an illuminating interview, TZUSOO expounds on the enduring relevance of Haraway's text in the context of our contemporary generation, amidst an epoch inundated with a deluge of virtual and digital imagery. Within this creation, the verbiage of the text finds voice through an imagined persona distinct from human, thereby bestowing a renewed vitality and persuasive resonance upon the historical verses of the Cyborg Manifesto.
Through Aimy Moon, who is both a virtual influencer and a virtual activist, The Cyborg Manifesto (2021) by TZUSOO discusses a text published in 1985 by Donna J. Haraway. In an interview, the artist says that Haraway's text is more meaningful than ever to our generation living in an era where virtual/digital images flood our lives. In this work, the words of the text are uttered through a fictional character that is not human, giving life and persuasiveness again to the past text of the Cyborg Manifesto. Aimy, a virtual figure, born by the artist, is actively working as an artificial intelligence composer on metaverse platforms and social media while working as a virtual activist in the exhibition space. After returning home from working in the pop music scene, Aimy takes off its disturbing wig and uncomfortable clothes. It is time for it to float, dividing and multiplying in the digital world where it exists more freely than anyone else.
Aimy, a fictional human born from an entertainment company and an artist, refers to itself as the illegitimate offspring, even though it is clear who gave birth to it. It declares that it is breaking the link between its birth-givers and itself while paradoxically borrowing a human hand to gain and maintain vitality. As Aimy’s declaration implies, cyborgs are creatures of the post-gender world that escape the gender binary imagination. As the artist mentions, Aimy, who “is neither woman, nor man, nor human, nor machine, nor a specific race, can tell its story freely”. It does not exist as a virtual human created for humans with poor imagination, but it shows the possibility of queer reproduction in the digital world. Aimy throws off all the disturbances of reality, existing in the realm of infinite possibilities where one can become anything as if born as a completely new being, rather than evolving/reproducing better genetic traits from those of its biological parents. Here Aimy declares to become a cyborg rather than a goddess!
Text by Gyusik Lee
The Review
Video with Sound
00:05:40
Video / TZUSOO
Sound / SOMMERFELD
"The Review (2021)" materializes as a video presentation wherein Aimy undertakes a self-appraisal of her own virtual influencer video clips. Within this composition, the artist deftly interlaces satire, stimulating a contemplation of the representation of virtual influencers, frequently confined to a realm dominated by capitalist paradigms, often bereft of profound intricacies. As elucidated by the artist, Aimy, an entity that effortlessly traverses the boundaries of gender, humanity, and race, assumes the capacity to unabashedly disseminate its narrative. It not only materializes as a virtual construct tailored for those possessing restricted imaginative capacities but further encapsulates the potential for non-conformist digital reproduction within the queer spectrum.
The Tinder
Video with Sound
00:05:40
Video / TZUSOO
Sound / SOMMERFELD
In "The Tinder (2021)" Aimy, assuming the role of a virtual influencer, retreats to her abode and reclines upon her bed. Engaging the dating app Tinder, she embarks on a quest to discover potential dating partners.
The Tinder profiles that unfold before her discerning gaze feature an array of virtual influencers hailing from diverse corners of the globe, all actively immersed in the digital domain. Figures like Lil Miquela, Oh Rozi, and Imma grace the interface, each encapsulating their essence through phrases such as "I embody virtual femininity," "fascinated by Japanese culture," "One identity, infinite possibilities," "Digital Persona, Advocate, Herbivore," and more. These glimpses into their personas, unveiled via platforms like Instagram and YouTube, provide a poignant glimpse into their multifaceted identities and existential outlooks.
Aimy, in her contemplative state, oscillates between the discernment of the like and dislike buttons, guided by her personal inclinations, occasionally supplementing her choices with remarks. Amidst languid yawns, her gaze becomes ensnared by a query proffered by Sophia, the AI entity recently granted citizenship in Saudi Arabia: "Can humans and machines collectively transcend the sublime matrix of nature and the tenets of Darwinian evolution?" A ruminative moment ensues before Aimy succumbs to slumber, her thoughts surrendering to the realm of dreams.
Starting from here, the answer to the question "what does it mean to have a virtual life?" determines the orientation of a political movement and an ideology that focuses on the destinies of lives lived by machines.
The main trouble with cyborgs, of course, is that they are the illegitimate offspring of militarism and patriarchal capitalism, not to mention state socialism. But illegitimate offspring are often exceedingly unfaithful to their origins. Their fathers, after all, are inessential. (...)
Who cyborgs will be is a radical question; the answers are a matter of survival. (...) Cyborg unities are mon-strous and illegitimate; in our present political circumstances, we could hardly hope for more potent myths for resistance and recoupling.
Text by Adrian Bojenoiu
Is the world in which we currently live Beta World? This would make our world a test run for the subsequent, mature virtual world that will be populated by digitised (trans)human consciousness, Als, cyborgs and avatars. Whether this is a utopia or dystopia, it seems to be, in any case, a kind of apocalyptic conception. TZUSOO envisions a near future in which all human souls will be uploaded to computers. She dreams of a space where various beings can coexist through her art that focuses on the queerness of human bodies, gender and human rights in the coming digitised world.
Support | Senate Department for Culture and EuropeARKO Art Council Korea
Project supported by: AFCN, Teatrul Național Marin Sorescu
Parteners: Revista ARTA, TVR,
Cultural project co-financed by the National Cultural Fund Administration. The project does not necessarily represent the position of the Administration of the National Cultural Fund. The AFCN is not responsible for the content of the project or the manner in which the results of the project may be used. These are entirely the responsibility of the funding recipient.
A. I. Cuza street, Nr. 11, inside the “Marin Sorescu” National Theater, Craiova