JONAS BLUME

Jonas Blume is a video and installation artist who builds his works from conceptual gestures that interrogate the relationship between the individual and its digital replication.

He lets his phone write his biography, uses Google Search to create an averaged image of himself, employs neural networks to create fictional doppelgangers, hot-wires beauty filters to maximally beautify himself, and holds performances in virtual worlds to test the boundaries of the cyberbody and digital sociability.

While his work manifests as object, installation, video and performance, the underlying denominator is the détournement of digital image technologies by pushing them against their intended purpose towards the brink of collapse. In this liminal state, he excavates their inner workings, and playfully transforms them in ways that confront life and representation, and incite the viewer to situate themselves in a hyperreal visual culture where reality and image-world overlap.

He received a BFA in sculpture from Pratt Institute, NY, and an MA in Visual and Media Anthropology from Free University, Berlin. He lives and works in Berlin.