Celeste Viv Ly - Interview by ARTISLE

INTERVIEW

Artisle Talk｜Celeste Viv Ly: Ice-Bound Thresholds—Traversing Hyperstitional Narratives of Biotechnological Futurity, the Hydrocene, and the Cryopolitical Imaginary

Artisle | 9 November 2024

Interviewed by Starry Chen

in vitro [ _ ] |{ _____ }, Performed at 13festivalen | Konstepidemin in Gothenburg, Sweden, and at Generate! Festival for Electronic & Performance Art | Shedhalle Tübingen, Tübingen, DE.

A: Welcome to Artisle! Could you briefly introduce yourself?

C: Hi I’m Celeste Viv Ly, a multimedia artist and writer from Seattle, WA (Coast Salish land) and currently based in London, New York (Lenape land) and online. My practice is rooted in an inquiry into biotechnological processes, speculative mythscience, and bodily registers of harm and synergy. I work across diegetic prototypes and multimedia — sculptural installation, performance, sound, and text — in sprawling speculative, hypertextual narratives. My research navigates interspaces that destabilise and reconfigure human and more-than-human entanglements in processes of becoming. These spaces often reflect my peripatetic experiences and an ongoing interest in technoculture and cryopolitics.

-321 °F | in sarcophago vivum aeri, installation view at St. James Hatcham, Goldsmiths, University of London. Artworks © Celeste Viv Ly

A: Your body of work “-321°F | in sarcophago vivum aeri,” exhibited at the St James Hatcham church at Goldsmiths, addresses themes of water, life, death, diaspora, and systemic violence. How did you begin with real events related to cryopreservation technology and develop these intertwined narratives into a sculpture-centered work?

C: Developed from my ongoing research on cryopreservation, freezing as an archival and empirical method, the Essex refrigerator lorry incident and private cryonics organisations, the work expands to the Sisyphean cycle of labour, transportation, violence, mobility and displacement on a larger socio-cultural scale. catalysed by the series of events including the Alcor v. Pilgeram et al. case (2015~2020) — Pilgerman’s legal fight for his late father (an affluent cryogenic scientist)’s frozen head against a cryogenics firm, due to the severance of the head and body (later cremated) upon cryopreservation. And in the Essex lorry deaths incident in 2019, 39 Vietnamese nationals were found frozen to death in the articulated refrigerator lorry they were trafficked in after the freezer had been unknowingly switched on. After the initial intense waves, the thought of it filled me with abject horror because such a horrendous incident has happened in relatively close temporal and geographical proximity to when and where I have been living. And as a person sharing similar ethnic backgrounds, it has left a seemingly irrational but chilling imprint in my mind: it might have been me, if I had been born into a different family, a different socio-economic background, a different country, etc. / with a different fate.

These events may have trans-spatiotemporally informed each other in the parallel of their visceral, tragic aftermaths, both of which were caused by the processes of cryopreservation and/or refrigeration. Engineered to preserve goods (refrigeration) and human bodies for potential revival (cryopreservation processes used in cryonics) in a more technologically advanced era, cryopreservation and refrigeration in these cases ironically became what prematurely ended lives or possibly deprived one of any chance of living another.

“-321°F | in sarcophago vivum aeri” (the title is a Latin phrase in reference to the refrain in Todesfugue by Paul Celan) emerged from my ongoing research into cryopreservation and its socio-political ramifications. The work is an exploration of both the archival impulse of cryonics and the violent realities of forced immobility, as evidenced by real-life events like the Essex lorry deaths and cryogenic preservation lawsuits. These incidents sparked a deep interest in how technologies designed for preservation can paradoxically accelerate erasure, forcing us to confront the fragile boundaries between life and death, mobility and stasis.

Archive, part of -321 °F | in sarcophago vivum aeri, installation view at St. James Hatcham, Goldsmiths, University of London. Artworks © Celeste Viv Ly

The installation at Goldsmiths weaves together these threads, using water as a tenet for the transitory nature of existence. Water is both a life-force and potentially lethal—when frozen, it becomes a weapon, its fluidity a site of potential violence. By transporting seawater from an undisclosed location and freezing it into icicle sculptures and pouring into the vessel-shaped wax sculpture, I invited viewers to consider the symbolic weight of cryopreservation not only as a technological process but also as a metaphor for the preservation of bodies caught in cycles of violence and mobility. The suspended icicle slowly melting into a sarcophagus-like wax sculpture became an elegiac tribute to the lives lost in transit, while simultaneously pointing to the cyclical, Sisyphean nature of such systemic forces. The work operates as a material synthesis of these tensions, inviting reflection on the necropolitics in the contexts of cryopreservation and displacement.

Exploring the liminal space between life, death and beyond, diasporic experiences, and necropolitics, the work is a reflection of the trajectories and struggle of bodies victimised by ideologies, in transgression, across systems of governance and bodies of water; aided, prostheticised, sabotaged, and/or eternalised by technologies and the technoscientific imaginary. It is dedicated to all the bodies that have been found and lost in the sea and beyond, the diasporic, and ‘us’.

-321 °F | in sarcophago vivum aeri, installation view at St. James Hatcham, Goldsmiths, University of London. Artworks © Celeste Viv Ly

A: In your performance piece "Torque," water was extracted from coordinates 133° 79.515 N 012° 90.797 E and transported to London. How did you determine these coordinates, design the entire “ritual," and the material-based divination, and ultimately present the water in the form of icicle sculptures?

C: "Torque" was conceptualised as a performative ritual centred on the extraction and transportation of seawater from a specific, liminal point—coordinates 133° 79.515 N 012° 90.797 E, an ‘undisclosed, nonexistent’ location at sea. The choice of coordinates was deliberate, drawing attention to the absurdity of geographical sovereignty and the non-places that are often left uncharted, yet heavily trafficked by invisible labor and displaced bodies. The coordinates themselves became a cipher for the spectral presences haunting global waters—bodies lost to history, unclaimed in displaced and postcolonial contexts.

Torque, Part II, 2021, L15.4*W11.3 cm, inkjet print. Artworks © Celeste Viv Ly

The ritual of transporting water from this location to London was designed to echo the displacement and movement of bodies across borders, invoking a kind of reverse burial at sea. Once the water arrived in London, it was transformed into icicles—a material metaphor for the freezing and preservation of time, memory, and trauma. The icicles, suspended in midair, acted as both relics and weapons, embodying the paradox of water as both giver and taker of life. Their slow melting over time paralleled ancient water torture techniques, with each drip drawing viewers further into the work’s meditation on systemic violence and the futility of preservation in the face of entropy. This cyclical process became a form of divination, inviting interpretations of the shapes and meanings formed by the wax and as the ice melted, transforming one state of matter into another, and thereby unveiling new narratives.

Torque, Part I, 2021. performance documention, film still. Artworks © Celeste Viv Ly

A: Your site-specific work "42°03'28.9"N 138°12’25.0"E" (2023), exhibited at the Kyoto Art Center, has live sound that complements the spatial installation. How did the sound and the installation interact within the spatial context?

C: The sonic sculptural installation work "42°03'28.9"N 138°12’25.0”E" exhibited at Kyoto Art Centre is centred on geotrauma, nuclear culture and the implications of current ongoing conflicts have on environmental resources, energy supply, and nature via the temporal latencies of war and nuclear catastrophes through the lens of hydropolitics, abjection, hyperobjects, and sonic investigation.

In "42°03'28.9"N 138°12’25.0"E," sound functioned as both an autonomous entity and an interwoven component of the installation. The spatial context of the Kyoto Art Center was essential to the work’s conceptualisation—the piece was designed to inhabit the liminal corridor between two architectural spaces, creating a sonic void that fluctuated in response to environmental and human presence. Distinct from the coordinates used in “Torque”, another work in the same series, the latitude and longitude 42°03’28.9"N 138°12’25.0"E in the title refers to a real yet hypothetical mathematical location. Continuing the exploration of correlated transtemporal geographic liminal zones, this point is calculated as the geographical midpoint between the Kyoto Art Center, the Fukushima nuclear disaster site, and other ground zeros (locations directly above, below, or at which a nuclear explosion occurs) referenced within the research framework. The interaction between sound and space was predicated on the idea of latency, particularly the residual echoes of the Fukushima disaster, which reverberate through both material and immaterial realms.

𝟰𝟮°𝟬𝟯'𝟮𝟴.𝟵"𝗡 𝟭𝟯𝟴°𝟭𝟮’𝟮𝟱.𝟬”𝗘, Nov 2023, Kyoto Art Centre, Kyoto, JP. Artworks © Celeste Viv Ly

The work in the exhibition focuses on the historical and present role of the Chernobyl nuclear power plant, the 1986 disaster and its current role in the Russian-Ukraine war. While the Soviet Union built the Chernobyl plant when it controlled Ukraine, it has shown via historical archival research that many sources viewed the disaster in 1986 as a contributing factor to the fall of the USSR a few years later. During the current conflict, Russian troops occupied the plant as leverage as part of their invasion of Ukraine from 24 February to 31 March 2022. This led to an increase of detected radiation levels and a risk of further radiation leaks.

Artist Panel Talk with Dr. Susan Schuppli, Kyoto Art Center, Kyoto, JP, Nov 2023

Through exhibited artworks, archival research, and panel talks with guest speakers and curators including Lucia Pietroiusti (curator at Serpentine Galleries, Head of General Ecologies), Dr. Susan Schuppli (researcher, board chair of Forensic Architecture), Taro Igarashi (architectural historian and critic) and Haruka Iharada (independent curator), the Chernobyl incident and its current status as a decommissioned plant were brought into discussion on the intertwining effects of war and nuclear culture, and in transtemporal parallel with the Fukushima nuclear power plant -- where a meltdown accident occurred more than a decade ago -- on which we conducted field research as part of the residency and exhibition programme.

𝟰𝟮°𝟬𝟯'𝟮𝟴.𝟵"𝗡 𝟭𝟯𝟴°𝟭𝟮’𝟮𝟱.𝟬”𝗘, Nov 2023, Kyoto Art Centre, Kyoto, JP. Artworks © Celeste Viv Ly

The soundscape was generated using field recordings from Fukushima and live audio feedback from temperature sensors attached to the ice sculptures within the installation. These recordings captured the subtle but haunting frequencies of an ongoing environmental crisis—frequencies that are usually imperceptible to human ears but made audible through artistic intervention. As viewers moved through the space, their body heat triggered fluctuations in the sound, producing an ephemeral sonic experience that mirrored the proximity of risk and the instability of the ice itself.

The installation's sonic elements weren’t merely an atmospheric backdrop; they were integral to the conceptual framework of the work. The sound acted as a carrier of memory, embodying the temporal latency between catastrophe and its aftereffects. It became a temporal membrane, blurring the boundaries between the present and the past, between what is seen and what is heard, and ultimately between the living and the dead. The interplay between sound and materiality echoed the precarious balance that the work sought to interrogate—between survival and erasure, between human and nonhuman bodies.

𝟰𝟮°𝟬𝟯'𝟮𝟴.𝟵"𝗡 𝟭𝟯𝟴°𝟭𝟮’𝟮𝟱.𝟬”𝗘, Nov 2023, Kyoto Art Centre, Kyoto, JP. Artworks © Celeste Viv Ly

A: The project also featured archival materials. What roles do archival research, fieldwork, and theoretical references play in your creative process?

C: Archival research, fieldwork, and theoretical references are foundational to my creative process, operating as intellectual and material scaffolding upon which my speculative narratives are built. Archives, for me, are not static repositories but living entities—vestiges of time, ideology, and memory that can be reactivated through contemporary engagement. I often draw from both formal archives, such as institutional records and scientific data, as well as more esoteric sources—personal diaries, oral histories, and overlooked ephemera.
Fieldwork, particularly in locations marked by historical or environmental trauma, informs the materiality and symbolism within my works. For example, when I conducted fieldwork at the Fukushima nuclear disaster site, it was not only about documenting the remnants of catastrophe but also uncovering the latent energies in the form of remaining radiation levels embedded in the landscape. These phenomena, referred to as residual effects, exist as “hyperobjects” (as articulated by philosopher and ecologist Timothy Morton) that are temporally viscous and profoundly impactful despite often imperceptible to the naked eye.

Theoretical references, including technocultural studies to speculative fictioning, allow me to frame my works within larger discourses on hyperstition, cryopolitics, and biotechnological ethics. The writings of theorists like Donna Haraway, Karen Barad and Kodwo Eshun as well as concepts such as the biotechnological sublime guide the material worlding and narratives I create. These references form an intertextual web through which I challenge and subvert prevailing narratives about bodies, technology, and identity. By synthesising these varied modes of research, my practice becomes a form of myth-making—where the archive is not merely a historical record but a site of potential futures.

◑ 133° 79.515 N 012° 90.797 E pt. I (fig 1, 2), “hamburgevons (𝑜𝑟 𝑖𝑛𝑠𝑡𝑟𝑢𝑚𝑒𝑛𝑡𝑠 𝑜𝑓…)” (fig 3) & “Intra-graft” (fig 4), 2021-2023. Artworks © Celeste Viv Ly

A: You seem to have a meticulous approach to material selection, including different types of wax, metals, and electronic components. Material semiotics is also a recurring theme in your work. How does this methodology inform the materiality in your pieces?

C: Materiality in my work is not simply about physical properties but about the semiotic and symbolic weight that each material carries. I approach materials as if they were linguistic elements, capable of conveying layered meanings and histories. Wax, for example, frequently appears in my installations not only for its transformative qualities—its ability to shift from solid to liquid and back again—but also for its associations with preservation, ritual, and divination. In works like “-321°F | in sarcophago vivum aeri,” wax becomes a site of temporal collapse, where the process of melting mirrors both the fragility of bodies and the futility of preservation efforts in the face of systemic violence.

Metals like tin, zinc, and antimony are selected for their industrial connotations and their ties to extraction, labor, and exploitation. These materials carry with them the histories of colonialism, environmental degradation, and capitalist production, which I aim to surface in my work. The electronic components —sensors, circuit boards, and LED screens—function as both material objects and interfaces between organic and synthetic systems. They become both the medium and the message, allowing me to explore the entanglements of technology, biology, and speculative futures.

Material semiotics, as a methodology, enables me to engage with materials not as passive substrates but as active agents within the work. Each material is chosen for its capacity to evoke a particular set of associations, from the occult to the technoscientific. This approach aligns with my broader interest in hyperstitional engineering, where the symbolic function of materials plays a crucial role in constructing speculative futures. The materials I use are not neutral but capable of transforming both the work and the viewer’s experience of it.

A: In your installation “Proto-Proxy" (2023–ongoing) at the Royal College of Art MA degree show, what is the relationship between the individual components and the overall work?

C: Proto-Proxy is an ongoing multimedia conceptual thought experiment + international DNA data storage startup that render mythologisation of actions, speech acts and unravelling of intricate networks of systems within worlding, exploring the body, fluidity, artefacts and its residual effects as hyperobjects. It is a multimedia conceptual thought experiment that blurs the line between art and speculative entrepreneurial activity in its metafictional approach. At its core, the work is an exploration of myth-making, particularly how contemporary biotech startups engage in mythotechnesis to create hyperstitional futures—fictions that make themselves real through narrative and material intervention. Each component of “Proto-Proxy” operates both as an independent object and as part of a larger circulating system, reflecting my ongoing interest in systems theory and cybernetics.

proto-proxy, 2023- (ongoing), Installation view, London, UK. Artworks © Celeste Viv Ly

Material-semiotically traversing the synthesised contexts of a time-based physical installation, film/startup promo videos, computer server rooms, concept store scenography, booths at trade shows/business expos, biotech startup, and the performance of a business pitch, it instrumentalises hyperstitional engineering, mythotechnesis, modus operandi in entrepreneurial biotech startups and performativity to approach biological-synthetic continuum, and reality as a discursive construct continually reenacted through speech acts.

The individual components—ranging from synthetic DNA samples and ballistic gelatine to server racks and LED screens—are material proxies for the speculative futures the work critiques. The installation mimics a trade show or startup presentation, with each object serving a dual function: they are both part of a speculative biotech enterprise and symbols of how contemporary technological futures are commodified and instrumentalised. The objects themselves are hyperstitional artifacts, designed to function within the world they help create. For example, the ballistic gelatin, often used to simulate human tissue, becomes a metaphor for the body’s vulnerability within systems of technological and capitalist exploitation.

proto-proxy, 2023- (ongoing), Installation view, London, UK. Artworks © Celeste Viv Ly

The work’s overall structure hinges on these components’ interplay, creating a feedback loop between the speculative and the material. In the context of “Proto-Proxy,” no component exists in isolation. Each part relies on the others to build a cohesive, albeit paradoxical, narrative of both innovation and dystopia. The installation becomes a form of “worlding,” where viewers are invited to navigate the contradictions and moral complexities of biotech startups, intellectual property, and the commodification of human bodies. Ultimately, the relationship between the components reflects my interest in the modularity of systems, where individual elements may have distinct meanings but are always in dialogue with the larger structures they inhabit. Italicising and examining accelerationist motives and moral complexities of instrumentalisation, it incubates speculative futures in which meta-ironic, contentious methodologies are embodied and enacted to generate pertinent questions about the surreal current era and to move energy and matter through time.

A: How does your practice engage with the intersection of speculative fictional narratives and technology, including discourses on hyperstition and mythscience?

C: Speculative fictioning and technology are the twinning forces that drive much of my creative practice, with hyperstition and mythscience providing the conceptual framework for my investigations into the nature of reality, technoculture, and futurity. Hyperstition, as coined by theorists like Nick Land and developed further by the Cybernetic Culture Research Unit (CCRU) and Reza Negarestani, refers to fictions that, through circulation, influence, and belief, generate real-world consequences. Mythscience, meanwhile, is a hybrid concept by Simon O'Sullivan that merges Roland Barthes’s concept of mythologies with scientific inquiry and science fictioning, a tool that allows me to explore how cultural narratives about technology and progress become self-fulfilling prophecies.

proto-proxy, 2023- (ongoing), Installation details, Truman Brewery, London, UK, July 2023. Artworks © Celeste Viv Ly

In my work, speculative fictioning is not just a narrative device but a method of research and creation. I often construct diegetic prototypes—fictional technologies, objects, and scenarios—that exist within a speculative, metafictional world but resonate with current technological developments. For instance, in works like “Proto-Proxy,” I engage with the speculative futures of biotech startups, creating a fictional narrative around a DNA data storage company that echoes real-world trends in bioinformatics and intellectual property. This hyperstitional approach allows me to critique the mechanisms by which speculative technologies become real—through venture capital, media narratives, and the belief systems surrounding technological progress.

Technology in my practice is both medium and subject. I use digital fabrication, coding, and electronics not only as tools to realise my sculptures and installations but also as metaphors for the broader technocultural shifts we are currently experiencing. My engagement with technology is often critical, questioning the ethics and implications of rapid technological change. Yet, through speculative fiction, I also explore the fractalising possibilities that new technologies may offer—futures that are simultaneously liberating and problematic. My work exists at this intersection, where the lines between fiction, myth, and reality blur, and where technological futures are shaped as much by narratives as by the technologies themselves.

proto-proxy, 2023- (ongoing), Installation details, Truman Brewery, London, UK, July 2023. Artworks © Celeste Viv Ly

Through enactments of thought experiments and varied forms of reasonings applied onto the real life propositions, the research and work recurrently lead to or become visceral speculative Catch-22 scenarios and solutions. Seemingly implausible and complicit with the structures of power that the processes attempt to revolt against, but oftentimes the only viable ones left, these outcomes implicitly echo their Kafkaesque premises and refract the lifeworld within the current strange, uncertain era, ruptured by signs of the coming cultural shifts.

These threads have woven through my practice over the past few years, continually evolving and interweaving with new contexts. For instance, in the performance piece “in vitro [ _ ] |{ _____ }”, showcased at 13festivalen in Gothenburg, Sweden and Generate! Computational and Performance Art Festival in Germany, I embodied a character within the performance’s metafictional narrative, reflecting on how changing the jellyfish's water condition is what connects us and them through something as inexplicit as survival on the basis of mutability, acclimatisation, and the ability to be resilient and thrive facing a society that compartmentalises. The somatic negotiation of the human/nonhuman body in the performance alludes to a multispecies holobiont model and a guerrilla support structure that queers norms and structures in place in the face of collective survival against systemic violence and adversities. The Ediacaran fauna, or ancestors of jellyfish, have survived and evolved from being the top predators in the marine environment way back in the Proterozoic era. They existed long before us, and in an era marked by collective existential dread, brought about by our own actions, who, ultimately, are the survivors? Their simple anatomical structure and seemingly amorphous resilience may well be the very traits people seek from biohackers and prosthetists alike to attain their own place at the top of the food chain.

in vitro [ _ ] |{ _____ }, Nov 2019, short film, performance, installation. Performed at 13festivalen | Konstepidemin in Gothenburg, Sweden, and at Generate! Festival for Electronic & Performance Art | Shedhalle Tübingen, Tübingen, DE.

A: During your residency at the NARS Foundation in New York, you created works like "Lance of Plausible Deniability" and "Aegis (Eternity MMA Ring) JH37(29)F-TR:0185" (2024). Could you elaborate on the concept of latent kinetic energy in these works?

C: NARS Foundation residency and the experience in New York provided me with a fresh lens to examine and reflect on my body of work and the kind of journey it has taken while at the research and experimentation stages of long-term and new projects. Both works made during the residency employ a metafictional perspective. "Lance of Plausible Deniability" and "Aegis (Eternity MMA Ring) JH37(29)F-TR:0185" engage with latent kinetic energy and hyperstitional machinations of cultural regurgitation through the lens of objecthood, temporal tension, diagrammatics and transmedia.

“Lance of plausible deniability” (fig 1) & “aegis (eternity MMA ring) JH37(29)F-TR:0185” (fig 2), Residency Exhibition, NARS Foundation, New York, NY, US, Sep 2024. Artworks © Celeste Viv Ly

“Lance of Plausible Deniability" is a time-based sculptural piece embodying the tension between stasis and violence. The lance, as a weapon, is the material artefact of the intrumentalisation of potential force. It is an intent, an action, a material-semiotic speech act flash frozen into a diegetic instrument insinuating a parliament of unnamed purposes ←↑→͍⌍⌏↜↝↞↟↠. Flirting with the tropes of fictitious instruments of violence, play, casino contraptions, and the interplay of eros and thanatos, it is constructed based on the nondual symbolism of a carrier-spear (in reference to Ursula Le Guin’s thoughts on technology, tool and worlding in The Carrier Bag Theory of Fiction). The work contends with a set of contradictions observed in the teleoplex system at large that the work is also part of while aknowledging-enacting the facet that it is problematising as a result of a cocktail mixture of complicity, inevitability, and survival instincts, all of which get covertly transcribed into plausible deniability in action.

“Lance of plausible deniability”, Residency Exhibition, NARS Foundation, New York, NY, US, Sep 2024. Photographed by Daniel Wang. Artworks © Celeste Viv Ly

Residency studio views (detail), NARS Foundation, New York, NY, US, Sep 2024

Parallel to the instrument floating in mid air in the previous piece, "Aegis (Eternity MMA Ring) JH37(29)F-TR:0185”, the "Aegis" in the title refers to the goatskin shield materialising the attribute of Zeus and Athene in classical mythology, suggesting the balance between aggression and defense, between kinetic release and potential energy through its surface tension. It is composed of High-bitrate material-semiotics via meta-stories® expounding on referencism* (ditto) through egregore engineering the syntactical strata. The work is made of an analog anthology of (un)ironic meta-schizoposting IG stories made from 2022 up to the recent months, referring to instances of content regurgitation and copyright infringement against my works and the works of people in the creative scene (sometimes by the scene itself). These transient digital artefacts were laminated on the surfaces of giant playing cards selected by a literal sleight of hand, melded in the materiality of the anadig surface and interfaces almost towards a point of fetishisation in the mind of a collector/hoarder/poster. When ironically and transtextually exported into the contexts of a mixed martial arts (MMA) ring through the suggestion of its title, the allegorical ring of the cyber-realm itself becomes a charged space of latent energy; the work reflects on how individuals, systems, and thought-forms (egregores) are constantly engaged in a baccarat of kinetic and latent energy, where forces remain in tension and the constant shuffling of an open ended participatory narrative, waiting for catalysis.

In both pieces, the concepts of cyclically reenacted discursive constructs and latent kinetic energy become metaphors for the unseen forces that shape human behaviour and social systems. It highlights the precariousness of these energies, the way they are harnessed, suppressed, or unleashed, and how they define the the fabric of cultural realities and power dynamics of both individuals and institutions.

A: Earlier this year, you collaborated with Aleksy Domke on the sculpture “Google Pompeii Lovers” (2024) exhibited at Gossamer Fog x Enclave Projects. What was the collaborative process like for you?

C: Collaboration on “Google Pompeii Lovers” was a fun process that allowed for a synthesis of distinct yet complementary perspectives. The project began as a speculative inquiry into digital archaeology and the ways in which technological mediation shapes our understanding of history and memory. We were both fascinated by the notion of “excavating” digital ruins—search algorithms, metadata, and internet artefacts—and reconstructing them in the context of contemporary art.

google Pompeii gay lovers, 2024. Sculpture in collaboration with Aleksy Domke. L45CM*W45CM*H30CM, Gossamer Fog, Enclave Projects, London, UK, 2024

Aleksy’s background in design and interest in online culture brought conceptual rigour and elements of absurdity to the project, while my own fascination with speculative fictioning, mythotechnesis and “schizoposting” (as a medium) infuses the work with layers of narrative and symbolism. The process was iterative, involving numerous conversations about how we could integrate material experimentation with digital processes. We both approached the collaboration as a form of speculative archaeology, sifting through the detritus of digital culture and attempting to reconstruct a narrative that was at once fictional and deeply rooted in real technological practices.

The sculpture itself—an amalgamation of mortar and 3D-printed structures —became a physical manifestation of our dialogue. “Google Pompeii Lovers” is a play on both the famous archaeological find of the entwined lovers in Pompeii and the modern-day phenomenon of internet-mediated relationships. By combining ancient and contemporary elements, we sought to explore how technology reconfigures not only our interactions but also the way we remember and mythologize them. The process was fluid and dynamic, with each of us contributing different layers to the final piece, creating a work that transcended our individual practices and opened up new speculative avenues for future projects.

google Pompeii gay lovers, 2024. Sculpture in collaboration with Aleksy Domke. Mortar, plaster, SLA resin, L45CM*W45CM*H30CM

A: Through organising events, curation, and collective transmedia work in London, Shanghai, Berlin,etc. such as the creative platform Æon and the artist-led performance & sound art collective Operation Theatre Purplebl0od Lab, how do you incorporate embodied experiences, into your research and creative work?

C: The embodied experiences from experimental sound art performance, electronic music and club culture, particularly the collective, immersive nature of raves, are central to my collective transmedia and curatorial practice. Æon and Operation Theatre Purplebl0od Lab serve as initiatives where the boundaries between performer, participant, and environment are intentionally blurred. These spaces become sites of co-creation, where the sonic, visual, and spatial elements fuse to create holistic experiences.

Æon, Operation Theatre Purplebl0od Lab, and “Subterranean Organ” co-curated with Daisy, The Crypt Gallery, London, SYSTEM Shanghai, ACUD Gallery, Berlin, etc., 2022-2024. The images includes works & performances by (in order): XIE3LLA & king_bright_bright, Kate Howe, Friendred Peng, Pierre Engelhard, Ramilda, Geo Aghinea, Buket Yenidogan, nielisha and other installation and performance artists. Photographed by Rain (Fig 1, 5).

V O R T E X，2022-2023. Research project, performance, short film in collaboration with Bea Xu & co.
Screening & Performance at 'Fluid Cosmologies', Forma Arts & Media, London, Aug 2023, LungA Festival, Seyðisfjörður, Iceland, as part of the Long Distance Residency at Helsinki International Artist Programme (HIAP), Jul 2023; ‘Faerie Rampage’, Curated by Yicong Soon, Milan Art Week 2023, Milan, Italy, Apr 2023.

As a lateral thinker who tends to work transdisciplinarily and collaboratively, I’ve been interested in Gesamtkunstwerk for a very long time, and event and show organisation become a great medium (or a nexus of mediums) to manifest the visions in an all-encompassing, exploratory way. Themed events have heightened potential in the production of realities — a refrain I continually deal with in my own projects as well. In these cases, events and shows become a medium that is participatory and bringing the embodied experiences of certain realities to the community and the masses. Many of my collaborative efforts have arisen serendipitously from random exhilarating discussions i have with my friends and creatives sharing common and sometimes niche interests. These events and activities come into being through the sheer sense of joy when actualising a shared vision and community building.

Æon, Operation Theatre Purplebl0od Lab, and “Subterranean Organ” co-curated with Daisy, The Crypt Gallery, London, SYSTEM Shanghai, ACUD Gallery, Berlin, etc., 2022-2024. The images includes works & performances by (in order): Eleni Zervou, Kate Howe, 2G and other installation and performance artists. Photographed by Rain (Fig 3).

In curating and organising these events, we draw from the immersive, multisensory environments of rave culture and music scenes in London, Detroit techno and music scenes in Seattle, where sound, light, and bodies interweave in a fluid, non-hierarchical manner. This is reflected in the way we approach the spatial dynamics of the events, ensuring that each element—whether sonic, performative, or sculptural—contributes to a larger, embodied narrative. Raves are sites of contemporary rituals, spaceswhere bodies in motion generate new forms of social and aesthetic knowledge. This is mirrored in the collective transmedia performances we organise, where sound art, performance, theatre, nightlife, scenography and visual art converge to create a temporal assemblage of experiences. In these works, embodied participation is not merely an effect but a method through which the audience becomes co-creators. Whether it’s through real-time sound manipulation, movement-based interaction, or sensory feedback loops, these experiences transform the audience’s relationship to the work and to each other.

The collaborative nature of these projects also speaks to the decentralised, non-hierarchical ethos of both rave culture and collective artistic practice, connecting to the universal spirit beyond gender, ethnicities, religion, etc. The embodied experiences generated through these platforms allow me to explore how collective exaltation, subversion, and resistance can be enacted through art, creating transient, liminal zones of freedom and experimentation.

in vitro [ _ ] |{ _____ }，film still, installation view & performance stills. Performed at 13festivalen | Konstepidemin in Gothenburg, Sweden, and at Generate! Festival for Electronic & Performance Art | Shedhalle Tübingen, Tübingen, DE Artworks © Celeste Viv Ly

A: How do you organise your multifaceted practices and sprawling creative processes? At this stage, what do you consider to be the most crucial ongoing threads in your work?

C: Organising my practice is akin to managing a dynamic, interconnected system, where various strands—installation, sculpture, performance, and research—are in constant flux but operate within a larger conceptual framework. My work evolves through a recursive, generative process that moves between research, material experimentation, and fictioning. I approach each project as an unfolding inquiry, where the boundaries between different media dissolve, allowing for cross-pollination of ideas, evolving in a process akin to the ship of Theseus in the transcription of mediums.

Some writers’ characters are continuous, transiting through a panoply of worlds, flipping the stained glass panes of canon divergence. An anthology of different possible lives, warmed by the same hearth, the same core—the same anima existing at the centre. Some writers’ characters fractalise, breaking away into different facets, stories born from the same stem in a continual universe. Personal histories, raisons d’être, and psychologies mutate as the chromatic lens blurs and attunes to different definitions of the image. If I were to use the analogy of character study to describe my practice, I personally identify more with the latter. As I trace the smoke trails across panoplies of worldbuilding, it organically evolves into a divergent, rather than convergent, approach.

in vitro [ _ ] |{ _____ }，film still, installation view & performance stills. Performed at 13festivalen | Konstepidemin in Gothenburg, Sweden, and at Generate! Festival for Electronic & Performance Art | Shedhalle Tübingen, Tübingen, DE Artworks © Celeste Viv Ly

My practice exists amphibiously in the studio, research rabbit holes, the hive minds I share with my collaborators, and panoplies of Tor nests, DMs, telegram chats, and databases of fractalising realities and emerging worlds. I view my creative and collaborative side quests as equally important as the main one(s) — they inform and evolve with one another like a double helix. During research oftentimes of an interdisciplinary nature, an exoskeletal framework of thought experiment(s) takes hold, built upon an internal structure of presuppositions, speculations, limit situations and non-sequiturs, leaving behind material and forensic vestiges to transpire and coalesce with one another in a constellational worlding/webbing of possibilities and narrativity. Collaborations across disciplines (with cryogenic scientists, biochemists, and computational architects, as in the recent research projects for instance) sometimes take place to further the interdisciplinary inquiry and actualisation of the thought experiment. A 'logically' sound framework is upheld as a principle (and to be potentially subverted), and yet by which frame of reference is contingent on the specificity of its subject matters.

At this stage, the most crucial threads in my work revolve around the intersections of speculative fiction, technopolitics, and material semiotics. These themes manifest across multiple projects, whether through the investigation of cryopreservation in “-321°F | in sarcophago vivum aeri” or the speculative biotech futures of “Proto-Proxy.” I’m interested in how bodies—human, nonhuman, synthetic—are situated within technological, ecological, and political domains of power. The Sisyphean cycles of abjection and Catch-22 type of scenarios often present in my work, speak to larger concerns regarding agency, culpability and complicity within these systems, shedding light on how risk can be potentialised to destabilise and transform them.

-321 °F | in sarcophago vivum aeri, installation view at St. James Hatcham, Goldsmiths, University of London Artworks © Celeste Viv Ly

A: You frequently reference the Sisyphean concept in your work. How does this relate to your experiences of growing up and creating across different parts of the world?

C: The Sisyphean concept, with its emphasis on endless cycles of effort, futility, and repetition, resonates with my experience of navigating different cultural, geographical, and socio-political contexts. Born in Seattle and growing up betweenDetroit and Shanghai, and later moving to London at eighteen, I have long been aware of the disorienting yet productive nature of existing in multiple worlds simultaneously. The constant negotiation of identity and agency within these spaces mirrors the Sisyphean struggle—an endless process of becoming that never quite resolves itself. These movements between places got me interested in embodying a context collapse, a tromp l’oeil of metropolitan non-places and geo-cultural specificity reverberating outwards in a mandala ripple. The incurred constant reinvention made me embrace the mobility of not fully ‘arriving’ at places and subconsciously embody the multitudinous attributes of where I’ve spent my life.

The sense of perpetual motion radiates outwards and echoes in the glocal communities, coupled with the sense of being in transit, both physically and existentially. This sense of being in-between—whether in terms of geography, identity, or temporality— enables me to viscerally experience and explore how bodies move through and are shaped by different systems, from biopolitical governance to cultural memory. In my series “in sarcophago vivum aeri” (the series of sculptural works also including the performance piece “Torque”), the Sisyphean cycle becomes a metaphor for the cyclical nature of displacement, survival, and the endless labour involved in resisting systemic injustices. Whether through the lens of technopolitics, diasporic generational trauma, or systemic violence, the in examines how bodies are subjected to Sisyphean tasks of survival within adverse environments. These tasks are often futile in the face of overwhelming forces, yet the act of resistance itself becomes catalytic, even in its apparent futility.

The Sisyphean struggle also speaks to the broader existential condition of living in a world shaped by late capitalism, geotrauma, ecological crises, and rapid technocultural change. My works frequently investigate the dynamic tension between longing and futility, reflecting a desire to break free from entrenched cycles while critically examining their pervasive nature, shaped by a collective indifference to meaningful change. This duality is reflected in pieces like “-321°F | in sarcophago vivum aeri,” where the attempt to preserve life through cryopreservation becomes a paradoxical act of erasure, or “Proto-Proxy,” where the speculative futures of bio storage are haunted by their own ironies, utilitarianism and corporate self-interest.

The Sisyphean concept is not just a metaphor for transnational movements but a critical lens through which I interrogate the broader collective conditions of contemporary existence. It allows me to explore how we might find moments of agency and transgression out of cycles that seem designed to subjugate both bodies and spirits. There is also a sense of resilience, of finding meaning and agency within the repetition. I am interested in how these cycles can be disrupted, how moments of rupture or subversion can create spaces for new possibilities. In this way, the Sisyphean struggle becomes not just a burden but a potential site for transformation.

'APTX 4869' -321 °F : 133° 79.515 N 012°90.797 E, Sculpture. Installation view, ACUD Galerie, Berlin, DE, Dec 2022 Artworks © Celeste Viv Ly

A: Could you share any insights into your upcoming projects and exhibitions?

C: I’m excited to be working on several new projects that continue to push the boundaries between speculative fiction, material experimentation, and transmedia storytelling. More events collaborating with rave venues and off-spaces will also happen stateside and across Asia. One of my upcoming solo exhibitions, scheduled for 2025, explores the convergence of material semiotics, alchemy and engineering futures. The installation will feature live art interventions and large-scale sculptures, drawing on my ongoing research into storage technologies and their implications in cryopolitics, (a)temporality, and reality construction.

I’m also in stages of developing a collaborative project with computational architects and biochemists, which will be showcased stateside and in London next year. This project will explore the intersection of architecture and thermopolitics—whether through cryopreservation or exile. These projects reflect ongoing commitment to exploring the interspaces between mythotechnesis and materiality, continuing to weave speculative futures and inquiries into the political and technocultural crises of our time.

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