Ali Eslami: Line of Sight

In the organizer's words:

To mark the Cremer Prize 2024, the LWL Museum of Art and Culture is showing two recent video works by prizewinner Ali Eslami (*1991). His works are primarily based on digital forms of representation such as virtual reality or 3D animations. The two works on show reflect digital technologies and the artist's own interactive experiences with them in the medium of film.

Eslami's work always involves a computer: his visual language is characterized by his enthusiasm for gaming and internet culture, as well as an enthusiasm for cybernetics, calculations and game engines. The potential of digital tools, but also the limitations of these resources, become apparent when Eslami opens up his pictorial spaces to the viewer: He combines spoken words, code poetry and ASCII art with the aesthetics and dramaturgy of video games. The artist repeatedly revolves around the question of what virtual worlds would have to look like in the future if people were to live in them. Eslami also pushes boundaries in the digital realm and overcomes them by merging technology and language.

Temporal and spatial investigations of memory, human cognition and emotion are central to Ali Eslami's work. The archive repeatedly appears as a place of the past and the future. Eslami invents new localities and spaces in the digital sphere and thus finds his way in the world. It is a process with an open outcome.