As part of HAU Hebbel am Ufer’s Spy on Me #3, Creamcake presents Sylbee Kim’s three-part film, “Trinity: Finance — Credo — Spirituality,” available to stream March 22 – 28.

New communities – and new definitions of community – form the focus of the festival “Spy on Me #3”. Over the past year, we’ve essentially met via digital interfaces. But how can we attain proximity without bodies? How does coming together work when its framework is always pre-programmed? We have internalized the pandemic rhetoric of ‘social distancing’, although the virus itself merely calls for ‘physical distancing’. The social part is still in our control. So how can we maintain community in solidarity, even in the online world?

In her work, Berlin-based artist Sylbee Kim draws attention to the imaginary connections between capitalism, technology and spirituality. Three sculptures are linked to the three chapters of the video “Trinity: Finance – Credo – Spirituality” (2019). In a non-linear narrative, Kim engages with the speculative frenzy surrounding cryptocurrencies in 2018, creating a timeless space that moves between archaic social images, religious faith communities and science-fiction scenarios. The first chapter, “Finance”, opens with the main character facing an uncertain future, lured by external voices to start blockchain trading. In the second chapter, an oracle promises eternal life through technologies, where notions of trust and economic progress morph into religious faith. In the final chapter, “Spirituality”, belief in technology becomes a faith in which ideas of the future are linked to primordial time. The three protagonists appear together in iconic configurations, such as “The Three Graces” from European antiquity or the Buddhist Trikaya.