Too Many Humans
2022
Episode 1: Nadim
Episode 2: Veronica
Episode 3: MD
2022-ongoing
Editing and sound by Ela Man
Too Many Humans offers an alternative take on the present day corporate reconceiving of the ‘metaverse’. Three episodes reveal the lives of three protagonists: Nadim, who creates 360 virtual tours of a large art gallery; Veronica, who cleans an office, while employees work remotely; and MD, who picks up fast food orders from a dark kitchen.
These episodes sidetrack the conventional understandings and seductive promises of today’s corporate virtual sphere: they recontextualise it through already existing manifestations, which made themselves visible as the pandemic gripped the world. In this context, Too Many Humans visualizes what fell through the cracks: the real-life stories of those working near and around the hardware that supports the production and consumption of digital space.
The work turns open-world game engines on their heads: what otherwise renders the irresistible images of future virtual spaces, is now used to tell stories about the wet bodies currently left behind. Here, protagonists in mundane living pictures leak the shortcomings that result from leaving everyday reality into the ‘metaverse’.
2022
Episode 1: Nadim
Episode 2: Veronica
Episode 3: MD
2022-ongoing
Editing and sound by Ela Man
Too Many Humans offers an alternative take on the present day corporate reconceiving of the ‘metaverse’. Three episodes reveal the lives of three protagonists: Nadim, who creates 360 virtual tours of a large art gallery; Veronica, who cleans an office, while employees work remotely; and MD, who picks up fast food orders from a dark kitchen.
These episodes sidetrack the conventional understandings and seductive promises of today’s corporate virtual sphere: they recontextualise it through already existing manifestations, which made themselves visible as the pandemic gripped the world. In this context, Too Many Humans visualizes what fell through the cracks: the real-life stories of those working near and around the hardware that supports the production and consumption of digital space.
The work turns open-world game engines on their heads: what otherwise renders the irresistible images of future virtual spaces, is now used to tell stories about the wet bodies currently left behind. Here, protagonists in mundane living pictures leak the shortcomings that result from leaving everyday reality into the ‘metaverse’.
Creative Directions
Architectural Association
2023
A series organised in collaboration with Manijeh Verghese from the AA’s public programme exploring the origins and contemporary contours of creative direction—that amorphously aspirational vocation that now dominates an era of cultural production in which the rapacious logics of the fashion cycle have bled into all adjacent disciplines.
Speakers included
Peter Saville, Adam Wray, Akinola Davies Jr, Grace Wales Bonner, Tawanda Chiwese and Fracisco Gaspar.
Architectural Association
2023
A series organised in collaboration with Manijeh Verghese from the AA’s public programme exploring the origins and contemporary contours of creative direction—that amorphously aspirational vocation that now dominates an era of cultural production in which the rapacious logics of the fashion cycle have bled into all adjacent disciplines.
Speakers included
Peter Saville, Adam Wray, Akinola Davies Jr, Grace Wales Bonner, Tawanda Chiwese and Fracisco Gaspar.
SAFE Exhibition
Somerset House, London
2022
Collaboration with Superflux
Team:
Seungju Lee, Hantao Li, Ela Man
Somerset House, London
2022
Collaboration with Superflux
Team:
Seungju Lee, Hantao Li, Ela Man
My Life in the Metaverse
2022
Three-channel 4K video installation with sound, looped
Curated by Dr. Omar Kholeif
My Life in the Metaverse features works by internationally renowned artists, many of whom will be presenting new commissions, or artworks that have never been shown in the UAE before.
The artists include Sophia Al Maria, Cory Arcangel, Cream Projects, Simon Denny, Celia Hempton, Paul Heyer, Haroon Mirza, Farhad Moshiri, Trevor Paglen, Nam June Paik, Heather Phillipson, and Andy Warhol.
“Clustering nearly two decades of my research and experience into My Life in the Metaverse that hopes to elucidate the possibilities of the free-wheeling techno world. This show is conceived as the first chapter in a series of projects that explore the prospects of our collective imagination,"
- Dr. Omar Kholeif.
Organised by Abu Dhabi Art, the show will be on display from November 16, 2022 to January 22, 2023.
2022
Three-channel 4K video installation with sound, looped
Curated by Dr. Omar Kholeif
My Life in the Metaverse features works by internationally renowned artists, many of whom will be presenting new commissions, or artworks that have never been shown in the UAE before.
The artists include Sophia Al Maria, Cory Arcangel, Cream Projects, Simon Denny, Celia Hempton, Paul Heyer, Haroon Mirza, Farhad Moshiri, Trevor Paglen, Nam June Paik, Heather Phillipson, and Andy Warhol.
“Clustering nearly two decades of my research and experience into My Life in the Metaverse that hopes to elucidate the possibilities of the free-wheeling techno world. This show is conceived as the first chapter in a series of projects that explore the prospects of our collective imagination,"
- Dr. Omar Kholeif.
Organised by Abu Dhabi Art, the show will be on display from November 16, 2022 to January 22, 2023.
