Surveillance, Silence, and Strollers: A Conversation with Alfatih
Presented as part of this year’s Pax Art Awards exhibition (February 15–April 27, 2025, at HEK in Basel), Switzerland-based artist alfatih explores the subtle yet irreversible ways in which technology becomes embedded in our daily lives. The three works on view are intentionally interactive, making the viewer’s engagement—whether through play, physical movement, or curiosity—an integral part of the experience. Technically intricate and conceptually layered, their pieces probe questions of human agency within speculative, often unsettling narratives. While the melancholic and at times morbid virtual environments may not immediately suggest it, the works invite reflection on how we navigate an increasingly fluid and digitised reality.
As a mediator at HEK, I’m fascinated by how different audiences engage with art, especially during tours with school classes and younger visitors. Some works spark curiosity, while others—like alfatih’s—invite people to interact with them. His work does something unique: it blurs the line between observer and participant.
Alfatih, ssloop.enterprises, 2025, «Pax Art Awards 2024», 2025, HEK, photo: Franz Wamhof
One striking example is ssloop.enterprises (2025), an arcade-style video game where players take on the role of a manager at a fictional pharmaceutical company specialising in anti-ageing medicine. The goal? Optimise time management under relentless corporate pressure. But every ethical decision comes at a cost: choosing morality over efficiency overheats the machine. The custom-built console even reveals its own inner workings, with blood-infused coolant taken from the artist circulating through its processor. In this unsettling mix of human and machine, players must decide: save the passive characters, or let the system survive?
This mix of playfulness and unease is what makes alfatih’s work so captivating. At first glance, it feels like a game – but soon it provokes deeper questions about power, labour, and the ever-blurring boundaries between technology and humanity. To better understand these themes, I spoke with alfatih about the role of technology, identity, and interaction in their work.
Distance, Identity & Participation
Fatima: Your work often creates a sense of distance through mirrors, digital avatars, and anonymity. Is that something you actively try to achieve, or does it just happen naturally?
alfatih: I prefer to stay removed.
Fatima: When someone experiences your work for the first time, what do you hope sticks with them?
alfatih: I hope it lingers in the ineffable.
Fatima: Your work has this poetic quality. It makes digital spaces feel almost… human. Do you see the internet as a space of connection or isolation?
alfatih: Both connection and isolation can happen. It isn’t a separate reality, just a different way of existing.
Fatima: If the internet disappeared tomorrow, what would you miss the most?
alfatih: Posting on Close Friends. But I would adapt overall. Tech isn’t the point — I use it as a tool. It’s present in my work because it’s part of our current reality. If it vanished, I would find something else.
Fatima: That’s interesting, because you’ve said before that you don’t really consider yourself a “new media artist.”
alfatih: I don’t relate to that term.
Alfatih, Way out of time, 2024, «Pax Art Awards 2024», 2025, HEK, photo: Franz Wamhof
Surveillance, Interaction & Control
Fatima: A lot of your work plays with the tension between watching and being watched. Do you think people act differently when they know they’re being observed?
alfatih: Some of the work does. And yes, people might claim they don’t mind being observed, because they have nothing to hide, but if someone follows you around all day, watching your every move, you would feel it. You’d be more cautious, more self-aware.
Fatima: I watched a documentary on data tracking recently, even music and dating apps collect and sell location data. Some people shrugged it off, saying it doesn’t directly affect them. It made me realize how much we accept being watched without question.
alfatih: Yes, surveillance is most effective when it’s invisible. If you don’t feel watched, you’re less likely to resist or even question it.
Fatima: Your installation A Way Out of Time draws people into a story without them fully realising they’re part of it. Do dream-like experiences still have a place in such a hypertechnological world?
alfatih: I didn’t approach this work through the lens of dreams. It extended an interest in the rules, explicit or implicit, that govern the experience of art within institutions.
Fatima: Your work plays with control and unpredictability. What draws you to that push and pull?
alfatih: Some of the work does. It’s a stage to experiment with dynamics found in governance or architecture.
Alfatih, Trojan Horse, 2025, «Pax Art Awards 2024», 2025, HEK, photo: Franz Wamhof
Memories, Permanence & Future Ideas
Fatima: What’s an idea you’ve always wanted to explore but haven’t yet?
alfatih: Economics.
Fatima: Did not expect that. Why economics?
alfatih: It’s omnipresent, invisible, but shapes how we live, what we value and what we imagine to be possible.
Fatima: Speaking of the invisible… do you think memories human or digital are ever truly permanent? Or do they all eventually fade?
alfatih: They evolve rather than fade. Recordings never capture the exact experience. A memory is altered every time you recall it. Eventually, memories recollected enough times turn into stories, and stories into myths.
Fatima: So, if your art could exist outside of digital or installation, where would it live?
alfatih: Food.
Fatima: Wait, food? Alright, last question. If your art could whisper one sentence to everyone who encounters it, what would it say?
alfatih: …
Fatima: Just silence?
alfatih: Yes. Silence.
Thank you to alfatih for sharing their thoughts on technology, identity, and the unseen forces shaping our digital lives. Their work is currently on view at HEK as part of the Pax Art Awards 2025 exhibition, running from February 15 to April 27, 2025.