Contemporary art and new 21st century sculpture
Aids-3D
Flavour of the moment or a force to be reckoned with?
Aids-3D (aka Daniel Keller and Nik Kosmas, a Berlin-based team of young American artists) utilise a variety of technologies in their performances, installations and sculpture in order to pass wry comment on the technologically-driven world we inhabit.
It's entirely appropriate, therefore, that the name Aids-3D was hit upon with the help of brand identity generating software that "simulates suggestibility/response levels in various microdemographics using a huge amalgamation of data like google searches, brainwave scanning, credit reports, numerology (and) psychoanalytic statistics".
If that sounds complex or even slightly scary, it's an everyday kind of scenario for artists who were born in 1986, and have grown up entirely in the digitally-driven world they describe.
Nevertheless, although both admit to being "seduced by utopian promises of a clean digital future", faith in such a likelihood is far from firm; instead, the relentless tide of technological evolution is viewed as double-edged in its potential, and much of their work focuses on "presenting its dark side".
It's an area of discourse which is likely to become far more pronounced as a new generation of artists provide authentic reflections of a truly technological age (Ryan Trecartin's dizzying videos are another example).
Yet for such a generation, everyday realities are more complex than ever, and absolutes harder to pinpoint. "Mostly our work is intended to be a sort of conversation-sparker rather than direct critique. But certainly we intend to communicate ideas, even if they're sometimes non-specific evocations rather than clearly established stances... without much ethical judgement."
further articles
Further articles
