The Cross – False Idols of the Digital Age - 1
Video, 2025
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About the artwork
The cross becomes a provocative symbol, humorously and critically reflecting on our modern worship of the digital. Fake gods, constructed of likes, filters, and viral trends, take center stage in this exploration of misplaced faith. The Cripples are caught in rituals of obsession – bowing before glowing screens, offering sacrifices of time and attention to an endless void. This chapter contrasts the weightlessness of digital illusions with the grounding force of true human connection. The Cripples struggle to balance their faith in fleeting virtual idols with the neglected need for shared, physical moments. The cross becomes a reminder of both the absurdity and danger of blind devotion. It poses a stark question: In a world that worships what is fake, where do we find what is real? The Cripples’ humor and vulnerability expose the cracks in our modern faith, urging us to reconsider what truly deserves our belief.
Credits: Ümüt Yildiz & Simon Toni Rowas
Sound Design by Aleksandar Nikolic
Audio explanation
Listen to Ümüt Yildiz discuss this work.
Ümüt Yildiz is a lecturer of Creative Coding in Design at Niederrhein University of Applied Sciences and lives in Cologne and Berlin, where he has been exploring artificial intelligence since 2018. Outside of his teaching, he often collaborates with artists such as Cro, and Bilderbuch and brands such as Bulgari, Tods, and Vogue Italia, testing the limits of current technologies.
He participated as an exhibitor in the NFT Pavilion 2022 Venice Biennale. His work is characterized by themes of humanism and controversy through the use of original production. The intervention of artificial intelligence in the visual material of original production allows an interpretation of reality free from the mechanisms of rationalist self-determination of man, introducing the concept of "memory" of the machine, which does not preserve any experience paradigms or culture inherent in human nature. Visual works are created that catalyze the world of the irrational and the unconscious, where the need to create order is less, leaving room for a more intuitive and ancient vision of the subject.