Stainless steel frame, styrofoam, paper-mache
200 x 200 x 140cm
A spider-like sculpture with steel legs and a doll-ish head creeps along the edge of the pool. Initially resembling a character from Toy Story, it bears the facial features of controversial YouTuber Trisha Paytas – as she impersonates convicted fraudster Elizabeth Holmes in an ASMR video. Using soft sounds ASMR videos are intended to have a calming effect on their listeners. Holmes, however, was the central figure in one of the biggest scandals of Silicon Valley, USA. She had pretended to have developed a new type of blood test. Holmes became a billionaire, celebrated as a tech pioneer. Yet her method was never functional and produced false diagnoses. When her swindle was discovered, she was given a prison sentence of several years.
Levi van Gelder's work attempts to retrace the lineage of adaptation among multiple counterfactual storytellers—balancing the thin line between self-actualization, fannish impersonation and multimillion-dollar wire fraud. The Frankenstein-like figure is like an analogous meme for the fact that swarm intelligence also makes questionable decisions - especially on the internet, where clicks and hype, not facts, determine what is believed, and where fictional narratives can be written, reshaped and misconstrued as reality. Van Gelder warns swimmers not to thoughtlessly swim with the swarm.
About the Artist
Levi van Gelder (he/they), born in 1995 in Beneden-Leeuwen (NL), lives and works in Amsterdam (NL). Through performance, writing, sculpture and video work, he uses fanfiction as a tool for queer resistance. In combining reality and fiction, van Gelder seeks to explore new ways of storytelling. Van Gelder is a graduate of the Sandberg Instituut (Amsterdam, NL) and is currently a resident at De Ateliers (2024-2025). SWARM marks Van Gelder's first artistic appearance in Germany. Most recently, his work was shown at Mutter (Amsterdam, NL), Semester9 (Amsterdam, NL), and De School (Amsterdam, NL).
TROPEZ
at Sommerbad Humboldthain
Wiesenstraße 1, 13357 Berlin
Google Maps
Monday – Sunday
10.00 am – 6.00 pm
TROPEZ
at Sommerbad Humboldthain
Wiesenstraße 1, 13357 Berlin
Google Maps
Monday – Sunday
10.00 am – 6.00 pm