Who are we really, what happens to our emotional lives and how do others perceive us when we as individuals increasingly merge with our own "digital shadows"? C.B. Evans' major work 'Hyperlinks or It Didn't Happen' is on display in the museum's Great Hall.
The Belgian-American artist Cécile B. Evans (b. 1983) works across film, sculpture, installation and performance. Evans’s work explores human emotions and what happens when they come into contact with ideological, physical and technological structures. The core issue is the human relationship to the digital world.
While our online life can seem hollow and unmanageable, it is important nonetheless. In an increasingly online culture, our digital alter egos become ever more important in terms of how we are perceived and how we perceive others. We are increasingly becoming our digital shadows, which impacts our emotional lives. This observation is key to the artist.
In Hyperlinks or It Didn’t Happen we encounter the main protagonist, PHIL, a digital substitute for a famous actor, who was recently deceased when the work was made in 2014. PHIL discusses our relationship to him and his new life as a copy.
In addition, we meet a number of other digital beings: a Japanese hologram pop star, a young man who receives messages from his dead girlfriend on social media, a spambot, an invisible woman and many others. Allowing the world of the screen to flow into the physical space, Evans reveals the very real impact of digital material on our lives and emotions.
C.B. Evans: Hyperlinks or...
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