Aftermath 2094: Kiriaki Hajiloizis
What is your work about?
The artwork is inspired by the novella, Our Silver City, 2094 by Liz Jensen. Within the reading there is a segment about the Internet. The Internet was depicted as a god in the novella and within the story, we learn what happens to the city and civilisation once the Internet becomes obsolete and dies. The artwork is about the life of the Internet from the noughties to the end of its life in the current day, depicted as a memorial video piece.
What are you trying to communicate?
How civilisation has become obsessed with the Internet in regard to communication of families and friends, portrayal of selves in social media, the destructive news around the world, how we become political experts from videos of news and the obsession of pop culture. What we show in this video is the internet culture of the noughties and how we live in the internet world. We want our audience to reflect and think about their internet experience and how they may have become obsessed with and reliant on the Internet.
Does your work link to, or are you inspired by any aspect of Our Silver City, 2094?
The artwork is inspired by the novella, Our Silver City, 2094 by Liz Jensen. The idea of the destruction of the god-like form, the Internet is what inspires the artwork. It is also inspired by how civilisation has become reliant on the Internet and the destructive effects on society when the Internet dies.
Describe your process of developing your work from ideas, through planning, to experiments and production.
For this exhibition I am collaborating with Masah Azar (fellow Fine Art post-graduate student). We shared our ideas for expressing the narrative of the Internet. Through researching, making notes and discussing our ideas we are able to develop the artwork. Experiments were made with video editing platforms, making .gifs and overlaying video works.
What does it mean to you to make this work?
To date, my artwork is about my immigrant upbringing in the UK and Cyprus. I have always made artwork which was about provoking opinion on political and social matters. On this occasion it is interesting to make artwork which is not about the specific topic of immigrant culture but rather the different social issue of internet culture. It has been enjoyable to make this artwork as it is a topic that reflects the thoughts of society.
What do you hope visitors will experience or take away?
I would like the audience to see the artwork and be able to reflect on their own internet usage and experience – and to take away the ability to reflect on how society is affected by the Internet.