Can I Believe in a Fortunate Tomorrow?

KOTARO NUKAGA（Tennoz）is pleased to present  ‘Can I Believe in a Fortunate Tomorrow?’ a solo exhibition by multimedia artist and filmmaker Sputniko! from November 2, 2024 to January 25, 2025. The exhibition, which includes three series of works, including newpreviously unseen pieces, reflects Sputniko!’s ongoing exploration since her debut at Ars Electronica（Austria）in 2009. As an artist who has pioneered media art and technology, Sputniko! has consistently used her work to reveal, blur, and transcend the boundaries of conventional dualities within society, offering experiences that unsettle our notions of “normality” and “common sense” while elevating them into the realm of art.

Through a critical lens, Sputniko! addresses technology, gender, and feminism, oftentimes extending to ethical dimensions. She incisively critiques patriarchal norms inherited from Western modernity by employing irony and parody to fracture and expose entrenched power structures, inviting viewers to see from a fresh perspective. Her work resonates with the cyborg theory of Donna Haraway’s A Cyborg Manifesto（1985）[i], continuing a lineage that rethinks identity and human boundaries. In this first exhibition at KOTARO NUKAGA, Sputniko! invites us to rethink our technological future through three series that integrate AI.

One featured work, Drone in Search for a Four-Leaf Clover  was exhibited at the 21st Century Museum of Contemporary Art, Kanazawa last year in their exhibition, DXP（Digital Transformation Planet）- The Next Interface, and was also nominated for The Lumen Prize, one of UK’s most prestigious digital art awards. In this video piece, an AI analyzes footage of a drone slowly flying over a field of clovers, searching for four-leaf clovers—a symbol traditionally associated with luck. But with technology enabling us to easily “discover” four-leaf clovers, does this truly bring us happiness? While technology may now allow us to locate these elusive four-leaf clovers with speed and precision, there is a certain unease in seeing the technology “benefit” us in this way, prompting viewers to question what is lost in technologicaladvancement.

Can I Believe in a Fortunate Tomorrow?   is an AI-simulated video that emulates saiun（彩雲）, or the phenomena of  clouds appearing to shimmer in rainbow hues near the sun, often considered a symbol of good fortune in Asia. By employing AI to analyze footage of passing clouds and synthesizing a rainbow effect over it, the work simulates the enchanting awe of a saiun, arguably as captivating as the real thing. However, as a simulated phenomenon generated by AI, the piece also reveals the duality of technology in shaping our future—a future that is both promising and potentially illusory.

In Tech Bro Debates Humanity, two men appear on monitors, debating various pressing issues facing humanity. These avatars, generated using AI, are modeled on Sputniko!’s facial image and voice but transformed into white male figures embodying the “Tech Bro” mentality associated with personalities like Elon Musk and Peter Thiel. The dialogue between these avatars are also generated by AI.

A tradition of female artists engaging with new technology while dressing as and using a male persona to release work has been seen widely since the 1990s, especially with artists whose works address or engage with minority statuses in society.  Artists such as Laurie Anderson, known for her complex performances that use a vocoder, have been known for caricaturized male personas, for example in her performance, The Clash（2010）. Such ironic, parodic strategies both disrupt and critique gender binaries, deconstructing the male/female dichotomy. Donna Haraway’s mid-1980s observation that we have all become chimeras—part human, part machine—remains relevant today, challenging not only the binary of male/female but also that of human/non-human. Her theory has since underpinned a broad spectrum of diversity, equity, and inclusion（DEI）initiatives, while also providing a framework for confronting the ethical challenges that arise as we interact with newly emergent entities like generative AI.

In the past few years, The discussions around technology has quickly shifted from merely pipedream what-ifs to a more pragmatic, “who, when, and how.” When Sputniko! began her career in the 2000s, the tech world embraced a spirit of openness and democratization. Technologies such as the internet and open-source commons fostered the idea that democratization through technology might subvert the macho, patriarchal capitalism of modern society. Sputniko!’s works reflect her engagement with this era’s social issues and her ongoing exploration of potential futures structured around DEI. Yet today’s Silicon Valley has seen a shift toward a “Tech Bro” elitism that prioritizes male-dominated structures, even leading to support for Donald Trump’s extreme conservatism in the 2024 U.S. presidential election. As DEI efforts are reversed, Tech Bro Debates Humanity  offers a satirical portrayal of gender dynamics and an ironic commentary on a Silicon Valley that debates and seeks control over humanity’s future from within a closed-off community.

Sputniko!’s 15-year journey has been marked not by a domination that strips away opponents’ rights but by efforts to unsettle the invisible structures of control themselves, freeing us from societal conventions and the grip of “normality.” With her current work, Sputniko! embraces the latest technologies while maintaining a poetic, personal approach that does not capitulate to technological dependency. Through her art, she revisits our imagined, primal coexistence with technology, urging us to re-evaluate this vision. So, once again, we ask ourselves: Can we aspire to a fortunate future mediated by technology?

[i] Donna Haraway, “Cyborg Feminism, Treville”, 1991, p.31