A female artist acts the actress, portraying an artificial human being. “Rachel”, the replicant from the film “Blade Runner” 1981), represents the created human as he or she has been rising from the dead in the sci-fi film genre since the 60s; predecessors include the filmed Frankensteins since 1931 (based on Mary Shelley’s “Frankenstein, or The Modern Prometheus”, 1818). The romantic idea of manipulated or anufactured humans, intelligent/strong/beautiful, corresponds to the development of computer technology – it still has no dependency on research fantasies fuelled by genetic technology.

Chip-fed, software-guided hardware. An engineering achievement through which the management term “human engineering” acquires an organic design dimension. Previous humanoid life takes place on the monitor drawing board – in the form of 3D animated vector graphics with which the evolutionary process of trial and error is anticipated.

Irene Andessner portrays herself as a guinea pig for the work of manipulation, but also for the unpredictability of real humans. She keeps hold of the command over the self-creative successes or un-successes: proposals for a likeness suitable for mass-production come into being, fail and disappear with “COPY”, “IGNORE!”, “ERROR”, “RESET”. The “Cyberface” video can be regarded as the manipulation, replication and elimination of the self-portrait. Or as the statement of a replicant who specialises in self-portraits.

Exhibitions:
Kojeninstallation, Lutz Teutloff Galerie at the Artforum Berlin, 1998
Podewil – Zentrum f¸r aktuelle K¸nste, Berlin, 1999
Galerie Giuseppe Casagrande, Rome, 2000
International Symposium “Predictive Medicine”, Seeon, 2001

Publication:
“CYBERFACE...REN”, folder, edited Klaus Wˆlfer, ÷sterreichisches Kulturinstitut Rome, 2000

Public collections:
“Cyberface”, 7 light boxes, Telekom AG/Schaltzentrale, Frankfurt am Main
“Cyberface”, 3 light boxes plus video, Rupertinum, Salzburg

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