Ariane Loze explores the processes of our personalities’ categorisation exacerbated by the digital world. Every day, without even realising it, these processes lead us to satisfy AI’s insatiable appetite for personal data, in other words, our life.
Our Cold Loves - Courtesy the artist & Michel Rein, Paris/Brussels
The artist, who lives between Paris and Brussels, expresses herself through videos in which she plays all the characters with the support of a shot and reverse shot editing technique. She also occasionally invites the public to participate in performances. In the video L'archipel du moi (2018), the artist warned about the wizardry behind highlighting our differences. Loze explains that "exacerbated individualism leads everyone to display how different, unique, exceptional they are, when in reality we are a little average and that's ok. This refers to La Pensée de Midi by Camus. But it's hard to accept!". In Bonheur Entrepreneur (2021), she furthered her sociological study by questioning the relationship between happiness and productivity, illustrating the desire to be successful and surpass oneself, particularly through physical activity. "A mindset of always waiting more, even if this means mistreating oneself, especially with metaphors associated with sport."
If you didn't choose A, you will probably choose B, 2022 - Courtesy the artist & Michel Rein, Paris/Brussels
Drawn into a social, economic, and techno-cultural system that values data, individuals today never cease to reveal their singularities. It is a question of analysing in greater detail our words and actions. Transparency, which rejoices data brokers, is also presented as the key to happiness.
In her work, as captivating as ever, Loze now looks into the power of algorithms that govern our lives.
Her latest films, If you didn't choose A, you will probably choose B (2022) and Our Cold Loves (2022), are featured at the National Museum of Contemporary Art Athens until the 28th of May 2023 and at the Michel Rein Gallery, in the Parisian (March 25th - May 6th, 2023) and Brussels (March 9th - April 15th, 2023) spaces. This time, her work also takes the form of a participatory performance. In the text associated with the exhibition, Caterina Zevola explains that "the artist gives human form to algorithms and performs an emotional X-ray on contemporary life".
If you didn't choose A, you will probably choose B, 2022 - Courtesy the artist & Michel Rein, Paris/Brussels
Face to face
The artist questions the data economy, algorithms that exploit them, and interactions between dating app users. Based on discussions with Jessica Pidoux (sociologist) and Paul-Olivier Dehaye (mathematician, behind the revelations about Cambridge Analytica’s practices), the artist portrays a society in which we are the consumer and the product, "impressionable / influencer / influenced".
Loze's powerful work highlights the increasingly intrusive business practices, supposedly there to protect us but which actually insidiously lead us to turn inward and shut out others, in favour of an exclusive face-to-face with AI. The economy, in which each of our actions is commercialised, leads us to express desires to which our personalities seem to have become restricted.
What if we looked away?
The apparent absurdity of the scenes shown to us by Loze is actually a reflection of our daily lives.
At a time when the challenges we face need to be addressed collectively, time seems to have altered the meaning of the word "community" whose virtual dimension has perverted its true signification.
