Hyperlinks or It Didn't Happen
Cécile B. Evans
Cinémathèque Robert-Lynen, Paris
Tuesday, May 12th, 2015
Camille B. Evans, Hyperlinks or It Didn't Happen, 2014. HD video, 22'30. Courtesy of the artist
Hyperlinks or It Didn't Happen adopts an operational logic used on the World Wide Web to follow the lives of a group of immaterial beings, each introduced to us by the failed 3D rendering of a recently deceased famous actor. Holographic pop star Yowane Haku is first seen dancing with a jellyfish to Billy Idol's Eyes Without A Face. There is also an invisible woman, who lives on a beach with her partner. She is invisible not because she is magic but because people do not see her, perhaps representative of an unseen (often female) digital workforce. Part of that workforce is AGNES—the digital entity created by Cécile B. Evans currently "inhabiting" the Serpentine Galleries website. They are driven by their own conditions of visibility, as well as by the possibility of emergence (or re-emergence) within and out of the machine. HOIDH builds like an intelligent platform takes shape as collages and networked images begin to include and even absorb figures and identities. The links in this narrative are hyper in the sense that they are operating horizontally, continually, without an end in sight. One has the impression that it could 'go on forever': even the integration of a commercial for the beauty oil Softness (featuring none other than Yowane Haku) will soon be available to buy—for real!
Born in 1986, Cécile B. Evans Born in 1983 (USA) lives and works in London and Berlin. She won the Frieze Art Fair's Emdash Award in 2012 and the Push Your Art Award in 2013. Her works have been presented in the following institutions: Fridericianum, Kassel; Kuntsmuseum, Bergen; Exit Art, New York; Grimmuseum, Berlin; Kunstverein, Munich. Her digital work AGNES is currently on view on the Serpentine Galleries website.