Fever Dream, 2021
Description
Fever Dream, Kite and Devin Ronneberg, 2021. Interactive multimedia installation (television, projector, LIDAR detector, digital video).
Fever Dream is an interactive multimedia installation by Devin Ronneberg, a multidisciplinary artist of Kanaka Maoli/Okinawan descent working primarily in sculpture, sound, image-making, and computational media, and Kite, an Oglala Lakota performance artist, visual artist, and composer. The work brings together their mutual interests in the implications of emergent technologies and artificial intelligence, information control and collection, Indigenous ontologies, and bodily interfaces. In response to the audience’s proximity, a CRT TV flips between channels algorithmically tuned in to scraped footage of conspiracy theories, paranormal and extraterrestrial sightings, and recent news broadcasts. The work plumbs the depths of the settler colonial psyche and the ways in which settler conspiracies are often founded on a denial of Indigenous agency and futurity, such as “ancient aliens” being responsible for the building of Indigenous earthworks and monuments. The work and its library of rotating footage function as a conspiracy generator for settler futurity, reliant on dispossession and the colonial cover-up. UFO sightings, space cults, and military-science Youtube theorists intermingle with press briefings on the oppression of “illegal aliens” (the dismissal of migrant rights at the border), uranium mining on Indigenous territory, and nuclear paranoia. GPT-2 generated subtitles, also built from a curated library, draw the viewer in, encouraging us to overcome colonial biases by first breaking through embedded conspiracies, mythologies, and desires.
Previous Showings
“Speculations on the InfraRed,” Elizabeth Foundation for the Arts (EFA), January 30–March 6, 2021, New York, NY.
“COUSIN Collective Presents Cycle ∞,” as part of MoMA’s Doc Fortnight 2021. March 27, 2021, 12:00 p.m.– April 1,2021, 12:00 p.m. New York, NY (Online)
“Exhibition | AI Delivered: The Abject,” Chronus Art Center, July 3 – October 17, 2021, Moganshan RD., Shanghai.
“Land Back,” La biennale d’art contemporain autochtone (BACA) – 6ème édition, Quai 5160 – Maison de la culture de Verdun, May 7 - July 3, 2022. Montréal, QC, Canada.
Press/Reviews
Ian Bourland, “Countering the Fetishization of Indigenous Art,” Frieze Magazine, March 15, 2021, https://www.frieze.com/article/countering-festishization-indigenous-art .
Harry Burke, “Speculations on the Infrared,” Art Agenda Reviews, March 18, 2021, https://www.art-agenda.com/features/383425/speculations-on-the-infrared .
Clément Gaboury, “Art autochtone à Verdun: se tourner vers le futur,” Journal Métro, May 13, 2022, https://journalmetro.com/local/ids-verdun/2824404/art-autochtone-verdun-futur/.
Valérius, “Invitation à découvrir l’art autochtone contemporain avec Land Back à Verdun,” Nouvelles d’içi, May 10, 2022, https://nouvellesdici.com/actu/land-back-biennale-art-autochtone-contemporain-land-back-verdun-quai5160-montreal/?fbclid=IwAR3t1NPzEsy9DqfgZNPPo3LfeSHAW-JX7qRv1hhW7IeZhEj1DRavyKS2tOs
Jérôme Delgado, “Luttes de guérison à la Biennale d’art contemporain autochtone,” Le devoir, May 21, 2022,
