Multimedia-artist working with video, photography and installation, based in Rotterdam.
VIDEO-INSTALLATION
2024
In this multimedia installation you travel to an imaginary world, which originates from Boiten's personal search for their gender identity. The video figures you encounter along the way represent the freedom that the digital world can offer. Digital infrastructure, such as forums and online games, play an increasingly important role in the self-development of contemporary individuals.
Boiten discovered that in the digital world you can always and at any time change your identity and persona. The title of the work refers to a vision of the future that is literally and figuratively still in the making: a digital world in which everyone has complete freedom to be who they want to be. The title ‘The future is under construction’ is a citation from the book ‘Xenofeminism’ by Helen Hester.
With this work, the artist questions the limiting definitions of the constructed binary gender spectrum, and speculates about the liberating feeling of moving beyond a binary set of gender definitions, while taking into account the importance of ‘labels’ for the representation of otherwise oppressed individuals. Searching for the right ‘label’ can also be confusing, because you do not always recognize yourself in the expectations that society has built surrounding these different gender identities.
The installation invites the viewer to step onto a robust metal sculpture and propel itself into polyester tunnels, to be immersed in futuristic and utopian worlds. Here, they interact with technology, nature, and living entities, embodied as an alien and a polar bear. They are invited to listen to a speculative dicussion about the potentiality of a queer utopia, and fantasize about what such a utopia would look like if they were to create it for themselves.
Accompanying the exhibit Boiten wrote a critical essay, bundling their research into digital space, queer identity and representation, and speculative future building combining writing by Hito Steyerl, Legacy Russell, Helen Hester, Judith Halberstam (aka Jack Halberstam) and more.
This essay can be found and read here.
The future is under construction was made possible with the support of Museum Hilversum, Mondriaan Fonds, Gooi en Vecht Inclusief en Mediastad Hilversum.
