WangShui’s Certainty of the Flesh, originally exhibited at the Haus der Kunst as part of their Window of Tolerance series, pushes the boundaries of both art and technology by exploring themes of identity, embodiment, and post-human existence. This ambitious LED sculpture and live simulation draws inspiration from Octavia Butler’s Xenogenesis series, in which alien beings merge their biology with humans, and this work similarly interrogates how humans merge with technology in today’s world.
The installation itself is a multichannel live simulation presented through a triptych of LED panels. These glowing displays, set within the architecture of the gallery, evoke a blend of the natural and digital. The installation features AI-generated avatars, choreographed with motion capture data, navigating a surreal domestic setting reminiscent of a reality TV set. This immersive experience is not linear but ongoing, inviting viewers to engage with it over varying durations, observing the blend of the real and the artificial in unpredictable ways. The constantly evolving digital bodies and environments raise questions about identity in a world where the boundaries between human and machine continue to blur.
As the Technical Producer for Certainty of the Flesh, I led the technical development and production of the custom LED panels and their integration with the live AI-driven simulation. This required close collaboration with WangShui and a team of engineers to ensure the system could handle real-time data processing while delivering a seamless, immersive visual experience. From managing hardware implementation to refining the software architecture, my role was to bring WangShui’s intricate vision of human-machine entanglement to life in a way that would maintain its conceptual depth while pushing the boundaries of contemporary digital art.
This project, co-commissioned by Haus der Kunst Munich and the Guggenheim’s Asian Art Circle, represents a significant step in WangShui’s exploration of human perception and artificial intelligence, creating an artwork that challenges viewers to consider their place in an increasingly digitized world. It exemplifies how the fusion of art and technology can create new forms of storytelling and visual experiences, rooted in both ancient mythology and futuristic speculation