H Y D R A: “While H Y D R A exists and operates mainly online, my biological self is digitally invisible.”

H Y D R A by CROSSLUCID

 

The Chronicle: Are you happy?

H Y D R A: Grateful.

Tell me something about the place you were born.

I was born in a small town in the South Coast of Italy. About the first 3 years of my life I remember the salty sea, the sticky air and the love of a nurturing matriarchal family.

What are you reading now?

Feminism Confronts Technology by Judy Wajcman.

Have you ever destroyed your works?

Never actively – I might have neglected or abandoned them and watch deterioration taking its course.

What were you doing an hour ago?

Setting up my installation at atelier 35.

Image by H Y D R A 

Do you think you could live in the Communist China?

Yes. I’m planning a H Y D R A residency in between China and Korea in 2020.

Are your works expressing some kind of an ending?

Just the temporarily ending of an act of labour. Stored energy.

Are we living already in “the future of loneliness”?

Loneliness is a side effect of our first rudimental attempt to adapt to the technological revolution. It is very present in our society, but it will dissolve gradually once we start exploring fearlessly the emotionally immersive and incredibly emphatic potentials of hyper-reality. I crave a future of interconnectivity and selfless love.

What objects would you collect in a secret archive?

I do collect my own nail clippings. I am interested in how the concepts of self-awareness and detachment coexist in the idea of preserving organic human traces.

What is the last subject from the mass-media that preoccupied you more than one minute?

A woman I used to know was brutally killed by her husband, adding up to the list of consistent and persistent daily episodes of feminicide.

Which one is more trustworthy: the collective intelligence, the intelligentsia or the private individual?

Self-determined intellectual and emotional wisdom in every aspect of our social being.

Can you name three historical events you’d wish you’d been part of?

Nothing from the past. Future revolutionary events are what I intend to be an active part of. Specifically in the following areas:

– Artificial intelligence and the future of human labour;

– Microbial ecology, environmental microbiology and microbial biotechnology;

– Circular economy, transparent market and conscious consumption.

ARCA and H Y D R A BY HART-LESHKINA for SSENSE

What comes into your mind when you hear about “human rights”?

Today, lack of equality.

They say we die all the time. Every time we don’t feel a thing, every time we do not discover anything, or each time we repeat something mecanically. Others are waiting eagerly for their death. What’s your relationship with death?

I think of death as a natural stage of the life cycle in every organism. It ultimately allows renewal and cyclic regeneration.

What significant progress you notice from cave life to the present?

Singularity utopia getting more and more tangible.

What is rationality’s purpose?

Defeating itself through randomized algorithms.

What takes your breath away?

Floating Energy.

ARCA and H Y D R A BY HART-LESHKINA for SSENSE

Do you listen to music when you create, or you prefer total silence?

Silence and White Noise.

The illusion you refuse to confront with reality?

I don’t believe in illusions, but only in visions. And visions shape reality.

Let’s suppose you searched for your name on Google at least once. What have you learned about yourself from this virtual voyage and what memory has Google kept about you?

While H Y D R A exists and operates mainly online, my biological self is digitally invisible.

Image by H Y D R A

How do you comment this Gilles Deleuze’s quote from his conference “Que-est ce que l’acte de creation?” (1987): A work of art is not an instrument of communication. The work of art has nothing to do with communication.

My practice is unspoken dialog, and the purpose is to create a connection.

Do you believe in life after death?

I believe in life and death existing within each other, beyond our comprehension.

What’s the strangest thing that ever happened to you?

I am amazed by how our brain copes with physical pain and trauma.

_____________________

H Y D R A (Anna Gloria Flores) is an artist, activist and fashion designer. Her practice aims at the transdisciplinarity between fashion, technology and performance, through which it articulates the mutations of human consciousness and sensibility caused by the acceleration of the digital era and the imminent revolution of Artificial Intelligence. Selected group exhibitions: Ceremony of the Void, David Robert Art Foundation, London (2017), It’s her, YEARS, Copenhagen (2017). Fashion-performance collaborations: Techno-Goth, directed by Joseph Delaney for NOWNESS, ARCA / TORMENTA for SSENSE and Prada, Montreal (2018); Arisen My Senses, Björk, directed by Jesse Kanda (2017), Nozomi-Iijima for Chanel No. 5, in the video collaboration with i-D FIFTH SENSE (2017).

H Y D R A is now part of a group exhibition held in Bucharest @ atelier 35, called CHIMERA (the first part of the larger curatorial programme Sense Navigational System, powered by Carmen Casiuc). Follow the details of the exhibition here.

You can follow H Y D R A on her official Instagram page.

Comentarii

comentarii

Scroll to top