Exhibition
1–26 February, Akademie der Künste

Or So It Seems is collaborative exchange between Alan Butler and Simone C Niquille that interrogates the technical and socio-political implications of computer-vision technologies. A simulation of an extreme weather report of a never-ending storm is interrupted by duckrabbit – the star of an animated TV series – who tells their queer coming-of-age story of self-discovery and their struggles with vision technologies. Roaming through California’s Yosemite National Park, the news reporter screams My First Summer in the Sierra (1911), an account of ‘nature writing’ by John Muir, in defiance of the storm, while duckrabbit ponders their desires for ambiguity in a world composited and remade with CGI assets.

As these worlds begin to collide and blur, their uncanny representations come apart at the seams. Questioning the gaps between the realities generated by CGI and simulation technologies and their high-resolution capturing of the present, Or So It Seems asks how we hold together when the line between impending doom and entertainment becomes unclear.

The exhibition features the premiere of two new video works by Alan Butler and Simone C Niquille.