ARTIST STATEMENT

We are the narrative of our own memory and the memory of others about us. This is how our identity is formed in a chronological context.

But today we know that memory is neither true, nor objective, nor complete. We lay traces, collect documents and photographs, and archive them. I see in this an existential doubt: who am I really if I cannot trust my memory and the memory of others? If I leave no traces, did I ever exist?

In the digital age, cloud archives with huge storage volumes are our memory. Algorithms collect vast amounts of data and traces that we leave behind in the infinite expanse of the internet. They find everything and forget nothing. They seem to know us better than we know ourselves. And more than that – they even know with statistical probability what we will do next.
Can they tell us who we are? Can we trust them? Or are these also just distorted images of artificial intelligences whose logic and intentions no one can see through?

The focus of my interest is the human being with his subjective perception and his ability to remember, to forget, to associate and – consciously or unconsciously – to think up his own utopias.

BIOGRAPHY

Eri Kassnel is a new media and concept artist, living and working in a small Bavarian village near Augsburg / Germany. She was born 1973 in Timișoara / Romania. Her family emigrated to Germany in 1978. She studied at the University of the Arts Bern / Switzerland and at the University of Applied Sciences Augsburg / Germany. Today she works as a freelance artist and lecturer at the Faculty of Design, Augsburg University of Applied Sciences. Her works have been shown internationally, i.e. FILE in Sao Paulo / BRA, IVAHM Madrid / ES, OPEN ART Biennial Örebro / SE and others.

She is a member of the professional association of visual artists and of the GEDOK Munich.