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
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.
