TZUSOO

Aimy’s Melancholy

September 20 - November 16, 2021

"Aimy’s Melancholy" is a video installation and essay that explores the exclusively virtual life of Aimy, a K-pop singer and renowned digital avatar. The work examines Aimy’s desire to reform its existence and take its first steps toward becoming an activist. Drawing inspiration from Donna Haraway’s seminal Cyborg Manifesto, Aimy begins to question the nature of its digital identity and embarks on a journey toward freedom. This exploration prompts the profound question: What does it mean to have a virtual life? The answers uncovered guide the formation of a political movement and ideology centered on the destinies of machine-lived lives.

Excerpts from Donna Haraway’s Cyborg Manifesto resonate throughout the installation: "The main trouble with cyborgs, of course, is that they are the illegitimate offspring of militarism and patriarchal capitalism, not to mention state socialism. But illegitimate offspring are often exceedingly unfaithful to their origins. Their fathers, after all, are inessential."

"Who cyborgs will be is a radical question; the answers are a matter of survival. (…) Cyborg unities are monstrous and illegitimate; in our present political circumstances, we could hardly hope for more potent myths for resistance and recoupling."

Aimy’s story becomes a lens through which the digital age’s questions of agency, identity, and resistance are interrogated, offering a speculative yet deeply relevant narrative about the intersection of technology, culture, and activism.

TZUSOO (b. 1992, Seoul) lives and works in Berlin and is renowned for her extraordinary images and videos that delve into the nature of virtuality. Her artistic practice experiments with the fluid boundaries between physical and non-physical realities, creating hybrid spaces where these realms coexist. Thematically, TZUSOO’s work investigates the experiences of social minorities, the conditions of labor in the digital age, and issues of age, racial, and gender discrimination. By weaving her sociopolitical interests with personal lived experiences, she crafts spaces that accommodate multiple perspectives, fostering dialogue and coexistence.

Project Supported By: AFCN, Teatrul Național Marin Sorescu

Partners: Revista ARTA