Solo show – video Installations of two works by Ana Gzirishvili Life of my ghost and Spy Bay Spy. Curated by Giulia Valenti and Paula Durinova, ACUD Gallery Berlin, 2020.

Spy Bay Spy is a three minute long looped animation video with a sound. 2019. Video features Bay – CGI character created by the multimedia artist Ana Gzirishvili.

Working with the CGI character Bay is Ana’s ongoing research on the role of digital bodies in nowadays society. Bay’s creation is partly inspired by the NASA funded exper- iment in 1960’s where scientists tried to teach dolphins to speak. Scientists, back then, assumed that a creature without hands would have a completely spiritual experience of the world, as they did not have hands – human’s sinister tool for the material perception and creation / destruction of the world. Ana made some drawings of creatures that de- liberately cut their hands off. One of them was Bay, who is now roaming through public spaces and digital clouds. Bays presence in the globalized Digitality is carrying vulnera- bility and unableness. How do ‘’digital chimeras’’ affect us while we are watching them on the screen? How do digital representation variations of the anthropomorphic or vulnerable bodies affect soci- etie’s perception of the human and it’s material presence? What and where is the ‘’safe place’’ both for digital and material bodies? How is it possible to reconsider our relation- ship towards the digital world and social media platforms that are increasing feelings of anxiety and loneliness, especially in younger generations. These are the questions that artist is trying to explore in Spy Bay Spy.

Life of my ghost is a two channel video installation with a sound, Nine minutes in a loop. 2019.

While new technologies are promising virtual, global micro-contacts and vague op- portunities, while younger generations have fear for current and upcoming economic / environmental global catastrophes, while the housing and work conditions, even in the West, is becoming incompatible, with increased feelings of depression, anxiety, non-be- longing, loneliness, being constantly delayed and tired, legitimate question lays in front of us: “Where and How to live”. Many people, especially young artists, are forced by the creative global world market to move around the world, to have good mobility skills and to be present in many places at once. Nowadays people are spending lots of time looking at the digital world. Many are finding a refuge and a “safe place’’ in the virtual. To elaborate on this in her video Ana is referencing Mark Fisher’s book ‘’Ghosts of my life’’. Video work ‘’Life of my ghost’’ is in a dialogue with Fisher’s texts concerning the younger generations inclination towards hedonism and mental health problems; Mark Fisher calls this state “Whateverness”. This state may be in a non-place, in-between place – where Bay dwells as well – on the threshold of material / immaterial lingering, “In the clouds”.
CGI character Bay and author’s image are animated on the video projection. They are having a dialogue referring to the above mentioned in a format of a poetry reading ac- companying the sound composition created by Cammack Lindsey.