Lilan Yang
The Perfect Human, 2021
Single-channel digital transfer of 16mm film, black and white, sound.
Original footage generated with GANs, physically fabricated as transparencies using laser printer and laser cutter, then digitally transferred.
00:13:05
Edition 1/3 + 2 AP
SYNTHETIC REALITIES
Synthetic Realities: Authenticity in the Age of AI Imagery
Chen Zirui, Anna Condo, Uglyy Fruuit, icysaw, Jess Mac, Maciej Miliszkiewicz, Niklas Poweleit, Isabelita
Virtual, Mind Wank, Lilan Yang
May 24 - June 07, 2025
Galerie Met, Berlin, Germany
Collaborator: Prompt Forum, Verse
Sponsor: Kaiber
Juried by: Ronen Becker, Clint Enns, Pablo Radice, Ivona Tau, Yichen Zhou
Installation view of Synthetic Realities at Galerie Met
Inspired by Jørgen Leth's arthouse classic The Perfect Human (1968), Lilan Yang's work of the same name feeds a low-res YouTube rip of the original into StyleGAN2, forcing the machine to reflect on “the perfect human.” Over 9,000 stills are scraped, processed, and trained into a synthetic fever dream of “perfection.” The result isn't a remake but a machine hallucination: a visual remix where smooth surfaces hide broken data. These generated images are then dragged back into the physical world as 16mm transparencies, completing a loop from film to algorithm and back. It's not a question of what the perfect human is—but what happens when a machine tries to make one.
Poster for Synthetic Realities at Galerie Met