HYPERTOURIST

2019 / performance and installation / Zürich

In a perpetual clash of bodies, technology, and data, we now perform across endless digital stages—each masquerade curated and tracked. What used to be a matter of physical presence is replaced by overlapping realities, where proxies and AI-driven feeds reframe our identities.

This incessant performance, once bound to face-to-face dramaturgy, has expanded into planetary-scale surveillance: behind every post, a network of predictive analytics transmutes our gestures into monetized signals. We might fancy ourselves travelers, but we are in fact exhibits, meticulously tracked, measured, and sold.

Foucault’s notion of unobtrusive power converges with the digital panopticon, where our clicks, searches, and anxieties feed the engines of “surveillance capitalism.” We drift in an environment that promises boundless connectivity yet keeps us tethered to hidden hierarchies.

Steyerl’s “poor images” once spoke to the low-resolution edges of visual culture; now, we witness an entire ecosystem prone to degenerate replication, deepfakes, and infinite recycling. Authenticity dissolves into fleeting impressions, drowned in the churn of network consensus.

Ultimately, our position is precarious: suspended between fleeting immersion and entrenched commodification. To recognize the code, to see its power, and to question our role in this hyperlandscape is the stance we must take. We may be staged as data points, but this need not be our destiny.