The Greek artist Kyriaki Goni works in the field of tension between digital technologies and the effects they have on society and the individual. In her works, she creates a distance that leads to a critical and skeptical perception of the increasingly powerful technologies of data collection, data storage, and data analysis.
While autonomous, self-learning, and free-acting systems through AI increasingly control the world we live in, society and individuals are losing control. The increasingly autonomous digital intelligence of algorithms is largely driven by capital interests. It is about markets, products, and controlling opinions. This is a process that undermines the foundations of democracy across national borders and legislation. Opinion formation and free choices are being undermined by algorithms that go beyond controlling consumer behavior to manipulating values and attitudes.
Kyriaki Goni's art takes on this overpowering adversary. She critically examines issues of interaction between technology and society, such as privacy and surveillance, control of information, networks and infrastructures, and human-machine relationships. She frequently collaborates with scholars, researchers, and scientists from a variety of disciplines.
For the Onassis Cultural Centre in Athens, she realized in 2020 'Data Garden'.
"Would it be possible for our digital data to be hosted in a garden, in a
secret network in the center of the city? Small, invisible plants (known under
the scientific name Micromeria Acropolitana) are planted exclusively on the
Acropolis rock and accommodate digital memory in their DNA.
The story unfolds through drawings, prints, videos, sound pieces, and interviews with scientists from the respective fields, and reveals the connections between digital memory and the climate crisis, exploring possible recourses and strategies of resistance."
For the exhibition 'Modern Love (or Love in the Age of Cold Intimacies)', Kyriaki Goni had produced a video composed of images selected by an algorithm via the hashtag 'couplegoals'. The captions and likes ran as subtitles. Katerina Gregos, curator of the exhibition: "We find ourselves in a voyeuristic position of observing couples and reading their intimate declarations of love and dedication and voluntary relinquishment of privacy."
In 2021, Kyriaki Goni was awarded the 1st ArtScience Residency of Deutsche Telekom in collaboration with Ars Electronica and Johannes Kepler University in Linz. The video installation 'Trailer, Not Allowed For Algorithmic Audiences' was created at the residency and has become part of the Art Collection Telekom.
