Josh Kline's AI : Artificial "I"

Josh kline's AI: Artificial “I”
(revised)

Josh Kline’s second solo at 47 Canal Quality of Life includes computer-generated  interviews with Kurt Cobain and Whitney Houston, re-appropriated Bank of America branding animations, doped blood in clear acrylic cast iceboxes and IV drips. Without boring the audience with the stereotypical lectures on the malfunctions of technology, Kline's attempt in picturing a dystopian world, addressing age, success and technologic interference, looks solid and effective.

Kline's dark satire gets clearer in the two videos called forever 27 and forever 48, two pieces in which a woman interviews Kurt Cobain and Whitney Huston whose faces are digitally mapped on living actors, as if they are still alive appearing in a TV show manner. The dead celebrities hilarious answers to questions about loneliness, drug use and making money reminds the viewer of  the Warholian notion of 15 minutes of fame. Furthermore, the combination of futuristic corporate drugs commercial ,the cold white lighting of the space, and the frozen boxes of urine on shelves, give the viewer the feeling of  both looking at a real product in a plastic surgery clinic and a glimpse into a sic-fi world.

kline's work is both satirical and ironic. one can not easily comprehend if he is mocking the emerging cult of youth and plastic surgery or is he celebrating the aforementioned. Quality of life confronts the viewer with a hybrid situation, which Kline doesn't seem to be bothered by and is attacking this hybridity from every angle.