By Tabitha Ysart Green
From the 10th to the 16th of June 2026 Engin Demir presented their debut solo exhibition “Synthetic Realities” at the Handbag Factory. This exhibition curated by Chupei Yu, Demir is a digital based artist whose works explore the evolving relationship between artificial intelligence systems, data structures, and contemporary subjective experience. These interests are exemplified in the series on display, aptly named Computed Subjects under Algorithmic Governance.
Installation view from Synthetic Realities.
Computed Subjects under Algorithmic Governance is made up of four single channel digital video works which were displayed independently on four screens throughout the exhibition space. As you walked around the space, and experienced each of the artworks, both as individual works and as a whole curated narrative, a disjointed storyline is created which investigates control within core elements of everyday life, home, work, and interpersonal relationships. Throughout the four artworks Demir repeatedly uses a comparative visual language which acts to highlight the absurdities of the visuals on display, yet the uncanny closeness between these scenarios and everyday life under modern technological advancements.
Installation view from Synthetic Realities.
The home is transformed into a space ship, highlighting personal isolation. Then the home becomes like a set or dolls house, with no roof and a large figure towering overhead, watching, manipulating. The city becomes a neon tron-like environment, with video game-like icons above figures heads, seemingly comparing city life and work with playing the game, literally. The office becomes a series of isolated yet interconnected pods of figures at computers, isolated and connected to the broader network, almost like individual neurons in a brain system, serving the algorithm. All of these scenarios highlight contemporary anxieties related to the implementation of AI into everyday life; isolation, control, gamification through algorithms, and loss of autonomy within a larger system – demonstrating the contemporary relevance of exploratory projects such as this. These works display these societal anxieties using digital video visual language, allowing them to take physical form and to be contemplated through a visual medium.
Installation view from Synthetic Realities.
Within the pieces Demir uses tools such as scale manipulation, multiplication of subjects and uncanny settings to blur the line between generated realism and explorative abstraction. A particularly striking sequence which speaks to the anxiety about algorithmised human interaction, the loss of autonomy in online communication, and issues related to personal relationships takes place in Computed Subjects under Algorithmic Governance 2. The protagonist is shown first in her home, and then in a city on a date. She is constantly accompanied by what seems to be an internal monologue on the top left corner of the screen. However, rather than being something human, it comes across like an algorithm learning human behaviour. Lines such as “conversation initiated by subject. Topic: his day. I deployed active listening protocol. Nodded at intervals of 6 to 9 seconds” come across like a computerized form of social interaction, quantifying responses and natural human interaction into set parameters of optimal interaction. This speaks both to the concerns about computer learning, and algorithms ability to mimic human interaction, but also the reduction of human instinct and learned behaviour into optimal interactions – removing the uniqueness and therefore humanism from everyday social interactions as a result of over use of algorithms.
Installation view from Synthetic Realities.
Each of the artworks is accompanied by a soundscape, utilising cold and mechanical sounds which amplify the uncanniness of the visuals. The curation of the artworks within the exhibition space, combined with the soundscapes from each of the digital video works, creates a surreal immersive experience, as if witnessing a dystopian future, or another parallel universe where contemporary anxieties take form. The exhibition opens up a space in which the viewer is invited to consider their own relationship with AI and algorithmic technologies. Rather than asserting a fixed position, Demir presents the world in an exaggerated yet familiar way, bringing these scenarios into focus and allowing echoes of them to be recognised in everyday experience.
Installation view from Synthetic Realities.
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Installation view from Synthetic Realities.
