SIYU AWARD
SIYU AWARD

Cedric Zellweger
If life is a video game, the graphics are great, but the plot is confusing & the tutorial is way too long.

The project critically examines the life and influence of Elon Musk. He has become a symbolic figure of our time, in which rich tech oligarchs treat the world like a giant playground, and their murky ties to Donald Trump only make matters worse. We are forced to inhabit the world Musk has built out of his delusions and science-fiction dystopias in the age of hyper-consumption, a world that favors technological governance of democracy over democratic governance of technology. Inspired by Bosch’s The Garden of Earthly Delights, the clear American dichotomy between good and evil dissolves. Heaven and hell blur into an indistinguishable spectacle in which Musk’s Texas embodies the expansive, protective, hyper-consumerist “American way of life”. The installation-based project employs various media: image panels of sets photographed on 4x5 film, a video game and several interactive objects made and programmed by the artist. Taking its title from one of Musk’s own posts on X, the series asks a fundamental question: Is this really the world we want to live in?

Visual artist based in Switzerland, with a background in economics and communication, and who recently graduated from École cantonale d'art de Lausanne (ECAL). His practice combines analogue photography, video installations and mixed media to explore the transformation and symbolism of everyday objects. A central interest lies in power dynamics: How objects, images, technologies and public figures shape our world.

Cedric Zellweger

If life is a video game, the graphics are great, but the plot is confusing & the tutorial is way too long.

 

The project critically examines the life and influence of Elon Musk. He has become a symbolic figure of our time, in which rich tech oligarchs treat the world like a giant playground, and their murky ties to Donald Trump only make matters worse. We are forced to inhabit the world Musk has built out of his delusions and science-fiction dystopias in the age of hyper-consumption, a world that favors technological governance of democracy over democratic governance of technology. Inspired by Bosch’s The Garden of Earthly Delights, the clear American dichotomy between good and evil dissolves. Heaven and hell blur into an indistinguishable spectacle in which Musk’s Texas embodies the expansive, protective, hyper-consumerist “American way of life”. The installation-based project employs various media: image panels of sets photographed on 4x5 film, a video game and several interactive objects made and programmed by the artist. Taking its title from one of Musk’s own posts on X, the series asks a fundamental question: Is this really the world we want to live in?

Visual artist based in Switzerland, with a background in economics and communication, and who recently graduated from École cantonale d'art de Lausanne (ECAL). His practice combines analogue photography, video installations and mixed media to explore the transformation and symbolism of everyday objects. A central interest lies in power dynamics: How objects, images, technologies and public figures shape our world.