Syndromes of Synthetic Never

Exhibition photos

List of works

Participating Artists: Panayiotis Andreou, Adonis Archontides, Kerem Ozan Bayraktar, Michalis Charalambous, Despina Charitonidi, Niki Danae Chania, Domenica Georgiou, Konstantinos Lianos, Marios Stamatis.

The exhibition explores the fluid relationship between reality, experience, and synthetic worlds as shaped by contemporary technology, memory, and subjective perception. Drawing on Husserl’s philosophical concept of the life-world and the distinction between the “artificial” and the “synthetic,” the exhibition approaches synthetic worlds not as imitations of reality, but as authentic, embodied, and viable modes of existence. In an era in which image technologies, digital environments, video games, and VR/AR applications shape new modes of percep- tion and interaction with the world, the exhibition raises questions about what we consider “real”, “actually lived”, and “authentic”. Synthetic worlds are proposed as fields of freedom, where experience, memory, and identity are reconfigured through hybrid forms, data, and narratives. The works on view present synthetic reality as a dynamic network of computations, sensory stimuli, and cultural constructions, arguing that both digital and so-called “natural” worlds operate through similar processes of synthesis. The distinction between the “real” (focused on authenticity) and the “actual” (focused on present reality over alternatives) becomes a central axis, opening a dialogue on how we experience, remember, and assign meaning within overlapping layers of reality. Through references to technological determinism, social constructivism, and posthumanism, the exhibition examines the dualities of the “synthetic never” and proposes an understanding of synthetic worlds as equally valid actualities: chaotic, calculated, pliable, and constantly shifting. At the same time, it foregrounds issues of othering, embodied memory, and synthetic freedom, suggesting new ways of critiquing social structures and dominant narratives. “Syndromes of the Synthetic Never” functions as an invitation to rethink contemporary experience as a kaleidoscope of synthetic sensations, emotions, and connections that exceed the limits of the physical body and conventional notions of reality.