* 1983 in Cleveland, US, lives and works in London and Berlin
Unraveling the value of emotion in contemporary society, the work of Belgian-American artist Cécile B. Evans explores the person-to-machine exchanges that have come to define the contemporary human condition. Her video installation What the Heart Wants examines what constitutes a person in the digital age and how machines (technical, social, and political) shape how we are “human.” If “corporations are people too,” as in the notion of corporate personhood, then HYPER, an ambiguous power and the narrator of the video, has achieved this ultimate goal. Amidst the dizzying paradoxes of future-turned-now, she is joined by a range of other protagonists: an immortal cell, a memory from 1972 that has outlived the humans who would have remembered it, a disbanded trio of off-grid lovers, lab children with their robot caregiver, and a workers’ collective comprised entirely of disembodied ears.
List of works
What the Heart Wants, 2016
HD video, color, sound, 40‘; water, wooden platform
Courtesy Cécile B. Evans; Galerie Emanuel Layr, Vienna; Barbara Seiler, Zurich
Video still of What the Heart Wants, 2016; courtesy Cécile B. Evans/Andres Parody; Barbara Seiler, Zurich; Galerie Emanuel Layr, Vienna
Handy if you’re learning to fly I, II, 2016
Custom-built holocube, assorted miniatures, HD video, cellophane, plexiglass stands, corn syrup, lacquer, C-type print, book
Courtesy Cécile B. Evans; Barbara Seiler, Zurich
Installation view of Handy if you’re learning to fly I, II, 2016; courtesy Cécile B. Evans; Barbara Seiler, Zurich; photo: Timo Ohler
Endurance Study – A Pictorial Guide I, II, III, 2016
Custom 2U server case chassis, transparent LCD screen, video, cloud study, media player, LED light strips, plexiglass stands, corn syrup, lacquer
Courtesy Cécile B. Evans; Barbara Seiler, Zurich; Private Collection
Installation view of Endurance Study – A Pictorial Guide I, II, III, 2016; courtesy Cécile B. Evans; Barbara Seiler, Zurich; Private Collection; photo: Timo Ohler
All works commissioned and coproduced by Berlin Biennale for Contemporary Art
With the support of Schering Stiftung
Coproducers De Hallen Haarlem, Kunsthalle Winterthur, Kunsthalle Aarhus
Additional support from Musée d’art moderne de la Ville de Paris; 20th Biennale of Sydney; Barbara Seiler, Zurich; Galerie Emanuel Layr, Vienna; Robert D. Bielecki
Foundation; KIASMA Helsinki; FACT Liverpool, Metal, and Canvas, cocommissioners of Commercials, 2015
In-kind support from Atomium, Brussels; BruBotics – The Brussels Human Robotic Research Center, Vrije Universiteit Brussel, Brussels; Andrew Martin and Contemporary Hotels, Joadja; Cow Prod, Paris; iw, Kontich; Scenic World, Blue Mountains; YEEZY; silentdisco.de, silentdiscotheque.com