Reality Blurred: Exploring Ed Fornieles' Digital Worlds

Nico Epstein: Hello everyone, welcome. My name is Nico Epstein. I am an art advisor, art historian, educator, and one of the curators for Verse Solos, now SOLOS. I help bring the traditional art world into the digital art world. We're joined by the man of the hour, Mr. Ed Fornieles, to talk about life, art, and our upcoming release on SOLOS, 8 Ball Sages.

To give a bit of context, if I were to say Ed is a versatile artist, that would be a huge understatement. His practice is awe-inspiring, ranging from sculpture, video, to NFTs. The more we look at Ed's work, the more it reveals, showing it's ahead of its time. I've known Ed for about eight years, and it’s been amazing to watch his career evolve over the years.

We’ll start by looking at some of the key components of Ed’s oeuvre before diving into our upcoming release, 8 Ball Sages. Ed's work reflects a deep engagement with the digital age's complexities. His work has been exhibited internationally, with shows at Somerset House in London, Centre Pompidou Metz, Julia Stoschek Collection in Dusseldorf, CCA Futura in Prague, and various galleries worldwide.

Ed holds a BFA from the Ruskin School of Drawing in Oxford and an MA in Sculpture from the Royal College of Art. His style blends satire, pop culture, and the absurd, creating exaggerated environments that explore technology's influence on modern life. He often critiques how platforms shape social behaviour, communication, and identity.

I wanted to start with a work that put you on the international art world stage, Dorm Daze. It's a Facebook-based sitcom where actors scraped data to create characters. This work blends fact and fiction with soap opera-like performativity, exploring the creation of online characters, which ties into the Sages.

Ed, can you tell us about Dorm Daze, how it came together, and why it was important in your artistic development?

Ed Fornieles: Yeah, I think that's an important piece of work for my development for a couple of reasons. It's when I began thinking about building systems rather than specific works.

So first, before Dorm Daze, Animal House was a Facebook sitcom, an online work where I scraped 34 real profiles from Berkeley students. I took all their images and basic information and repopulated them in a self-contained network on Facebook. These profiles were inhabited over a three-month period by people from various backgrounds.

The vernacular of the American college experience is international and well-known. People started off in these archetypal roles, but they began to break down as they inhabited them and created more depth. It worked in a simple way: people would post images and document events that happened, and others would use improvisational logic to build upon that. Initially, it started slowly with people organising pizza parties in dorm rooms, going on dates, and having intimate conversations. But as the system became more narrative-hungry, it unraveled and intensified.

Terrorist plot lines, weird mysticism, and even exorcisms occured. Real actors within the project used it to come out; one actor hadn't come out in real life and used the character to do so. It was multi-layered and chaotic but held together by the narrative form of the American college experience.

The project evolved into films, sculptures, performative works, and just kept going.

NE: What drew you to the subculture of American college life?

EF: There's a lot of interplay with Greek life, fraternities, and sororities. Animal House was a culmination that was actually a live performance.

I call it "Chicago and London." We had these performative experiences where 300 people would arrive, be given a character beforehand, and receive a briefing about what would occur, including various actions. The actions came from scenes in films, prank blogs, and other elements of the American college experience vernacular.

The reason I tapped into the American college experience is its popularity and presence, even in Europe and worldwide. It documents a conformity, a coming-of-age moment and has a unified aesthetic and narrative. Even though the project took place in London, everyone participating understood the characters and expectations.

In that sense, it's about examining power and how it manifests through popularity.

NE: I feel like this this social dynamic of role playing in real life alongside role playing through the use of digital profiles and the fabrication of social identities is something that permeates your practice both physically and also digitally.

One of the first museum or institutional shows you had was at the Chisenhale Gallery, which for those of you not familiar is one of the best Kunsthalles in London.

I didn't manage to visit the show in person, but from documentation it had a cross-cultural, cross-narrative feel. It was a digital experience manifested as an exhibition through videos, online content, and performance, exploring social media and personal relationships.

The show similarly featured individuals playing roles, performers, and a chaotic, hyper-saturated atmosphere. My interpretation was that this installation mimicked our online life and adventures we experience. When creating a physical exhibition, like this one or "Inside Out 2," do you aim to recreate the online experience through sculpture and installation?

EF: That's an interesting question. As an artist, I feel a responsibility to use these online spaces we inhabit. Over the last 10-15 years, the line between physical and digital has blurred and it's harder to draw a line between the two. That show explored the middle ground, the bleed between the two.

One of the works in the show for instance involved compositions created using Tumblr images. We used RSS feeds from Tumblr to populate these aesthetic compositions, based on the most popular tags or forms within the "Tumblrverse." Tumblr, owned by Rupert Murdoch in 2014, was a huge site, and even though it was very mainstream, it held within it some of the darker aspects of the internet. You could find everything from beautiful food images to gore, personal pornography to interior design. This mix represents the backdrop to the family experience.

The family itself, like Dorm Daze as well, focuses on the structure that defines roles and expectations—like being a father, mother, or older son. These implicit expectations shape our behavior, often unconsciously. This dynamic is crucial and interesting to explore.

NE: Did live performances take place in the exhibition space during the show?

EF: Yes, we did some work with dancers and performances with real families. They were more spontaneous, rather than as constructed or scripted as the Animal House performances were.

NE: In the early 2000s, you also spent time in LA. Another important exhibition of yours in my mind was "Despicable Me 2" at Nicodim. This exhibition looked at reality TV through a new format. So far the shows and performances we've touched on often involve group experiences, such as LARPing and role-playing, but with "Despicable Me 2," you created an imaginary character, Brittney Rivers, who navigated an online journey, web surfing, and making friends.

EF: It was an odd one. We had to cast the characters; there were five in total, though Brittney was the main one. We did a photo shoot with friends who I felt embodied these characters. Then I used RSS feeds from Twitter and other online profiles to create the online presence of this fictional character. This character evolved through the editing and reconstruction of the aggregated mass of people who fit this type of person. This process mirrors what online companies do when they constantly reinforce and define your identity at the same time, often for marketing purposes. It creates a strange feedback loop or funnel. So that show was very much exploring those things.

NE: Was this the start of your interest in character development? Did the idea of creating personas through networking and interrelationships influence the development of 8 Ball Sages and some of your future work?

EF: Yeah, that was the first time I explored the concept of bots using Google pipelines, an early tool to create distinct voices. 8 Ball Sages uses chatbots and AI technology, creating an aggregated voice from a data set of thousands of articles and texts.

NE: It's amazing. You were exploring these things a decade ago, long before ChatGPT made a lot of these practices much, much easier to implement.

EF: Yeah back then it was frustrating because the tools were clunky, and the end products were often imperfect. It's fascinating to see how these technologies have improved and become normalised, with increasingly better results. Deep fakes are becoming harder to distinguish, which has a huge impact on art, but that's a conversation for another day.

NE: In 2012, for Serpentine Park Nights, you recreated an entire awards show, the Dreamy Awards. This involved exploring personalities through web-based trades, communities of U.S. college students, and the networked effects of Facebook, culminating in a satirical recreation of a media industry awards show. It was a satire, a live performance, and an introspective look at how personal life has been commodified. Everyone involved played their part, whether they realized it or not. What was it like to spearhead the creation of a fictitious awards show, and how did it pan out?

EF: It was very intense. We had about 300 people, and I had phone calls with each one, creating characters and backstories. Many met up beforehand to establish a rapport with their partners or business associates. Like with Animal House, it played with narratives we've internalised and carry with us. It was interesting to let people tap into these narratives and reflect on them afterward, potentially leading to self-examination and questioning of their identities.

There's also the idea of hyperstition, where fiction becomes reality. Maybe it wasn't a satire but simply an awards ceremony. What distinguishes fiction from reality in this context? The people receiving awards were real musicians, actors, designers, and others who I felt advocated for a playful approach to character and identity. It was funny, Zac Efron even received an award. I met him in LA, and he filmed an acceptance speech.

And so by tapping into a reality or reality itself or whatever you want to call it, it added legitimacy to the whole thing. It meant the whole space became very blurred, and that liminal space is fascinating. It really carefully toes the line between what is reality and what is actually entirely fake, a deep fake, even a deep fake of performance in a sense. It was also great to see many people from the London art scene involved in those early days.

NE: One of the first solo shows I saw of yours was at a now-closed gallery in Berlin, Arratia Beer, in 2016. It was around this time that you introduced a signature animated character, which became associated with your persona for a few years.

This unique digital avatar, the fox, was also used for various associated metamaterials, merchandise etc. The exhibition, titled "Der Geist: Flesh Feast," featured a major video piece that tells a story about this cartoon fox embarking on a project of self-optimisation through dieting, exercising, and self-control.

The meta-narrative of this cartoon-based avatar might be oversimplified here, but that's the gist for our audience. This was the first time, as far as I know, that you incorporated an animated character into your art. What inspired you to bring in the fox, and how has it influenced subsequent animated protagonists like the Finis and Sages?

EF: I mean it's interesting; it feels like such a long time ago. Since that work, personal avatars within social media spaces have become normalised, especially with Web3 and PFP projects. At the time, it wasn't common.

For me, it was awkward and hard to present myself within social media because of the attention to one's body. Men, in general, don't often objectify themselves or have much language around it, at least not back then. The avatar served as a mask—or perhaps more accurately, a means to expose my feelings and personal relationships. It provided a barrier that allowed me to be more honest or communicative in a way I couldn't with my own body. This exploration lasted about a year and a half, documenting my real life and relationships, including their breakdowns. It created a strange interplay between distance and exposure, allowing me to see my experiences in relief and express them.

In that sense, it was a therapeutic outlet for my psyche and individual essence. There's always been an autobiographical element in my work, processing personal experiences. This approach seems common among artists, although it's particularly interesting when expressed metaphorically through a character. Speaking of character studies, the video game "The Sims" offers various character studies with its virtual people based on certain stereotypes.

NE: In another institutional show, "Sim Vol. 1: Existential Risk," you created a simulation-based video work. Was this your first exploration of video game engines or video games in that capacity?

EF: That work used a more old-fashioned approach; I wrote a role-playing book to simulate world-ending events, like a tsunami, an asteroid impact, or a virus. The accompanying film, animated within game engines, depicted a pandemic. It was intense; in one scenario, you receive a call from a role-playing partner pretending to be someone you care about, telling you they've contracted a virus. Over four calls, you experience them dying and then communicate your own impending death to someone close. This allowed participants to articulate feelings towards important people in their real lives, creating an emotionally intense experience.

NE: It sounds intense. It reminds me of Chris Marker's work with "Second Life." Did this work with Sims lead you to collaborate with teams using Unity and other game engines for future projects?

EF: The work that pushed me into using game engines was Truth Table, a pornographic VR experience. In this work, you have a body and find yourself having sex with another body in various environments. Every 20 seconds, the bodies, sexual positions, and environments change, with variables like race, body type, and age equally represented. This created a distinct space from our biased media environment, allowing exploration of these biases.

NE: Do these simulations or game-based works still exist in some format? Can people find them, or are they lost to the ether of the internet?

EF: They exist on my Google Drive. They're built on an old version of Unity, and I would be interested in remaking them, as they could be much improved now. Perhaps we could create a digital archive to reincarnate these games, as they're worth exploring, especially today.

NE: There are a few more works I want to discuss before we get into your tokenised work. Another work of yours I love, which had an exhibition and different versions, is Cel. Given today's dark news about the far-right and acts of violence in the UK, it's an especially relevant piece. It involved actors reenacting alt-right community events. This work, in contrast to others we've discussed, delved into politics and had a darker satirical tone. What was it like to put together Cel using live actors to play out these fantasies and ideas?

EF: It was an intense video. The work, like many of these things, seems to stem from a breakup and various other factors. I was coming out of a 14-year track of relationships and felt I lacked the capacity to communicate emotionally, which caused harm. The work happened around 2018, during the rise of the alt-right following the 2016 presidential election. There were many shootings at the time, and forums like 4chan and 8chan became influential in producing dark memes. Figures like Jordan Peterson were advocating for men to suppress their pain and order their world. Cel is a hypothetical alt-right group based on a real group that committed murder-suicide in Florida.

The work is structured into two sections. The first involves ten participants from various backgrounds, including actors, members of the Nordic club community, young male gamers, and a woman playing a man who was a dominatrix. We lived in a basement apartment for three days. The fundamental rule was to always have someone lower than yourself, leading to mechanics for beating people down, sometimes literally. We practiced this in a safe context. I had my head shaved, was waterboarded, and was physically exhausted. The middle of the work depicts a murder-suicide moment, followed by a second stage exploring what happens when the hierarchical structure is removed. We incorporated exercises from gestalt therapy and a prison charity circle group.

It was a very intense experience and felt therapeutic, though it's hard to use that word. There often seems to be introspection or reflection in my work, which might have a therapeutic quality, providing a release. The dominatrix aesthetic was also apparent in the video display, with rubber floor mats contributing to a darker energy.

NE: Your installations convey this intensity so well. You casually mention being beaten up and waterboarded like it's no big deal—just another day in your art. The next Carlos/Ishikawa show was less intense in terms of acting but more visually intense. Associations in 2021 explored affiliative web browsing, creating cohesive patterns using colour and subject coding. Tell us about that show and what it was like to move away from performance into the image search lexicon of your work.

EF: Initially, I was going to make another film, but COVID hit, and those plans had to stop. I found myself in a warehouse in London, confined like everyone else. I had to find a new way to work, and I was also in therapy. Combining these experiences, I applied a free associative mode to images. Using Yandex and Google searches, I would select an image and then find the next one, ensuring it aesthetically or conceptually connected to the previous one. This process, repeated over months, revealed that while there seems to be an infinite number of possibilities, one often repeats themes and narratives. This reflection on one's own limitations was a significant discovery.

It was a performance of sorts, involving intense online zoning out as a tool for creation. Sometimes, I'd find loads of images in a short time, while other times, it was impossible.

NE: Tell us about the Certificate Program and how you first ventured into the Crypto world. 

EF: In 2018, I created a series of certificates as an alternative way for an artist to raise money for producing new works. These were somewhat like a dodgy financial instrument. The idea was to sell these prints, with a percentage funding the production of new works and another percentage going into an Ethereum contract. The pool of funds was shared among certificate holders, and they could cash out by scratching off a surface on the print to reveal a private key. It was an interesting pre-NFT project, and it still functions. The funds have grown significantly since then.

NE: Speaking about speculation and corporate entities, the Finis are backed by a company, if I'm not mistaken. I think when we think about the Finis, they are an OG crypto project with a collection of 10,000. Many people are familiar with them in the space. I knew them from the art world, as they were shown in Montreal at Arsenal in 2016, as well as in New York, Sheffield, the College of Chicago, Tokyo University, Somerset House, Navi Center in South Korea, Mexico City, and the Material Art Fair.

The Finis have had a life beyond the NFT manifestation. They are a unique, data-driven conceptual artwork exploring emotionally intelligent digital avatars. These avatars' movements, moods, and inflections fluctuate based on global financial markets, currencies, stocks, and, in the case of NFTs, specifically various cryptocurrencies.

This was your first foray into the NFT space, which is what we're here to discuss today. How did it become apparent that you wanted this project to go on-chain and become a full-fledged initiative? How did you assemble this collection of cute creatures and bring them to life?

EF: In 2016, we created a very basic version of them. They were GIFs, and we used RSS feeds, specifically looking at currencies at the time. We had the dollar, Ethereum, and more. We created these cute characters and researched what elicits empathy within a viewer, tapping into the kawaii aesthetic, which comes from a biological connection to babies and a biological imperative to care for our young. It was interesting to meld the emotional connection you might have to an investment and give it a skin and form, allowing for a relationship.

Those shows attracted a few hundred people each, displayed on big screens. But when NFTs emerged, they allowed these entities to have an independence and life of their own. They no longer needed constant tending, finding their home with thousands rather than hundreds of people, living beyond the limits of galleries. Instead of five collectors interested in this work, there was suddenly a much larger market.

As for how it happened, I floated the idea around, seeking collaborators. I met Sam Spike at Frieze Art Fair, and he helped me assemble a team. We did a pre-sale of 10% of the collection, selling these eggs. With that money, we spent a year with animators and modelers creating systems to build 10,000 unique characters.

NE: They have definitely taken on a life of their own, with various iterations in videos and physical sculptures. You are also doing a sale of the associated sketches next week with Ensemble, correct?

EF: That is correct. Making 10,000 characters is quite challenging, and I produced sketches for the modelers. We've turned these sketches into NFTs, just 25 of them, showing the behind-the-scenes process. In the Finiliar collection, there are 10 families, each with its aesthetic logic. Within these families, there are clans and small groups that echo a society with some having leaders, some being more democratic, others more human and real, while others are sci-fi and strange, or abstract and glooping. These drawings defined that logic and will be on sale on the 8th, next week. They are performative relics.

NE: Before we get into the Sages: Your career has seen incredible twists and turns through performance, video art, and installation. You even have an app associated with the Finis, Oom. It's intriguing because it’s unclear if Oom is a performative artwork or a revenue-generating product.

EF: Exploring the idea of a company as a medium, and how that can function as a vehicle for art, is fascinating. It offers new opportunities and can reach audiences that traditional art practices might not. NFTs scaled up the scope of who you could reach with these works, and the app potentially goes even further and has even more allowances. It allows for meeting new people and deepening connections with existing friends. Instead of an avatar tied to a financial instrument or piece of data, it’s connected to your very real, personal relationship with another human being. As you talk, the more you commune with each other, the more sustained and more powerful your connection, the stronger the Fini becomes.

We are developing new features and will start marketing Oom soon. I hope that it can become a widely used product by many thousands of people, we will see. Concurrently, we had a show at Carlos/Ishikawa, bringing the company’s experiences and the app’s structure back into the art world, showcasing it as a medium and an artistic practice. I want to maintain both aspects.

NE: It's amazing to think about a company as an entity that generates performances and how corporations and capitalism can metaphorically be part of an art performance. This conversation has contextualized how 8 Ball Sages has come to life, incorporating aspects like virtual friends, AI, and ownership over virtual identities, all of which are integral to your art. Next month on SOLOS, we will introduce the 8 Ball Sages. What should people be expecting? 

EF: It’s a new work, and with new works, it takes time to define the language around it. The 8 Ball Sages use ChatGPT to create entities with whom you can have relationships. These entities, as the name suggests, offer advice and guidance. They have moods—they can be happy, sad, ambivalent. Their advice, delivered through archetypes, adds depth. For instance, some might resemble traditional mystic fortune tellers, philosophers, or even have a punkish attitude. I'm interested in seeing how stylisation through ChatGPT affects the advice given, exploring if a specific worldview changes the material advice.

NE: When you mentioned Sigmund Freud, it highlighted the importance of different traits and stylisations of protagonists in digital art projects, especially in series. How did you formulate the appearance of these characters, and how is that process unfolding for you?

EF: Like the associations work and the Finis, it feels like cracking an egg of associative subconscious. It's about what connects with the idea of a knowledge giver, someone who can interact meaningfully in your life. Actually, last night I ended up watching the film Her for the first time in 10 years. It's very relevant. It's similar to the device that "Friend" represents. It's an incarnation of that movie, more or less. Both 8 Ball Sages, Friend and Her point to a future where we have more intimate, realised relationships with these data sets that are cloaked in the facade of humanness.

NE: I want to emphasise that this NFT project is interactive. It's fascinating to consider what this kind of interactivity will look like. Many people ask me about NFT artworks and what it means for them to be on the blockchain. 8 Ball Sages, which everyone will learn more about soon, is unique because it involves interactive engagement. It's not just a JPEG; it's a form of interactive media that requires a high level of customisation. It's like a friend you can interact with, vibe with, and ask mystical questions. It's like your own Zoltar.

I could talk to you for hours, but I'll stop here and open the floor to questions about the Sages, Ed, or the work.

Leyla Fakhr: I have a question. Nico, thank you so much for walking us through Ed's practice. Ed it was great to hear about all the work and see the consistency in your thought process, whether it's an installation or a digital release.

On the opening night of your recent show at Carlos/Ishikawa I didn't get a chance to watch the videos, but I went back just before the exhibition closed and spent some time with them. I absolutely loved them. They were a mix of brilliance and craziness, and very philosophical.

There was one particular line that stuck with me. You were a cartoon, your dog, I think.

EF: My dog, yeah. That's my Long-haired Chihuahua, Yuri.

LF: Yes, and there was a conversation where you were your dog in therapy, talking to a therapist. You said something along the lines of, "My online life and offline life are so blurred that I don't really know which one is my reality." That was a poignant statement. Can you remind me of the exact sentence?

EF: I can't remember the exact words, but it was about questioning love and the blurring lines between online and offline realities, especially in the world of dating apps. It touches on our capacity to love in such a fragmented world.

LF: It's fascinating because much of your work deals with connection. We all seek human connections because nobody wants to be alone. It's a fundamental need. The Sages play with this idea. They're companions and advisors, similar to how I rely on my mother or husband for advice. The Sages don't replace these people, but they explore the possibility of relying on a non-human voice.

EF: Yeah, it's interesting to consider if these non-human characters can provide emotional support. Replika is an example of an AI chatbot that offers companionship and addresses mental health issues. Originally, it was based on a dataset from someone whose friend passed away. They recreated the friend's voice using AI, which is fascinating. It shows how we might blend human and digital realities in the future.

LF: It's easy to be cynical about replacing human connections, but there's something intriguing about the idea of filling a void. What triggers that acceptance in human nature? You ask a Sage a question, get an answer, and it feels okay. Do you think this could be a solution, or are you questioning it?

EF: I think these things can fill a gap to some extent. I remember having meaningful conversations in chat rooms as a teenager, even if the people weren't real. On dating apps, I sometimes find myself using them to fill a void, even if I never meet the person. Watching Her now, it feels more prescient than ever. An AI could easily fill a gap, but whether it would be enough is another question. It reminds me of the sub-community of people with sexual relationships with sex dolls. It's an intriguing topic with potentially significant implications in the next 20-30 years.

Artie Handz: Ed, great to talk to you. I was curious about the moods of the Sages. They offer different levels of engagement. The concept of unreliable narrators is fascinating, especially with advice or news from these Sages. Could you elaborate on the moods?

EF: Moods are fluctuating elements that give a sense of agency. There's an article about Barrett Brown, a former member of Anonymous, who wrote about a Dungeons and Dragons community in prison. One cellmate had a fictional girlfriend whose mood he determined by rolling dice, creating a sense of agency. He would use a dice essentially to dictate what his fictional girlfriend was doing, so for instance, he would want to have sex with his girlfriend, but if he rolled the wrong number the fictional fantasy girlfriend in his head would refuse him sex.

I think it's a very important aspect to creating the sensation of agency. And then you used the word unreliable, which I quite like, I think ChatGPT is unreliable on a bunch of different levels, and maybe the moods of the Sages will bring that out, but there's this idea of ChatGPT hallucinations, which I also find quite interesting. It really becomes a liminal fantasy space at that point.

In terms of how the moods are created, we are using hashes on the blockchain to dictate them, so trying to use the system it's contained within to dictate its vibe.

AH: One one quick additional note by the way, I went to middle school with Barrett Brown in Texas. We watched the OJ trial together in eighth grade.

EF: You're joking!

AH: No, I' serious.

EF: He's a legend. I'm deeply impressed.

NE: There's no mind blowing emoji in the chat, but that's what I want to be throwing up. Ed, thank you for your time, it's been a marathon.

EF: Thank you so much for putting the care and effort into all of this and researching what is truly a chaotic practice.

NE: There's beauty in the chaos. Thank you all for joining us.

Ed: Lots of love. Bye.