Arvida Byström
Arvida Byström (b. 1991, Stockholm, Sweden) is a digital native with an intrinsic relationship to pink. Her work is rooted in ideas that deal with the Internet and its social, aesthetic, and commercial implications. Known for her use of a hyper-feminine aesthetic, she investigates themes such as femininity, body image, social dynamics, emerging technologies, and economic principles – primarily through lens-based practice, performance, and sculpture. Having previously lived in London and Los Angeles, she is now based in Paris, where she navigates an aesthetic universe of disobedient bodies, fruits in lingerie, tulips and AI sex dolls. Her work has been exhibited at venues worldwide including Victoria and Albert Museum, London; Tate Modern, London; among others. She has worked both behind and in front of the camera for numerous influential brands and magazines. Byström lives and works in Stockholm and Paris.
The festival’s exhibition takes place at Kunsthalle Wien Karlsplatz and features five artists known for probing the intersection of politics and digital culture. Arvida Byström’s video and sculptural investigation of deepfake porn and digital sexual futures also serves as a preamble to her offsite performance at Haus der Republik (Wiener Festwochen) – Funkhaus (A Cybernetic Dollhouse) in collaboration with an AI-powered sex-doll named Harmony.
The suite of six sculptures presented in the exhibition Model Collapse is created from three state-of-the-art sex dolls. Part of a broader body of work exploring the digital reordering of sexuality, gender, and desire today. Lola, Alba, and Lily are all secondhand sex dolls purchased through online forums. Stripped of their skeletons, once shaped for human touch, the disassembly and collapse of these dolls gives a strange undressing of desire. The way the silicone folds is akin to digital renders where the skeleton of a 3D character has been removed, making it look like a melting human body moving in impossible ways.
