DED, 2021
Information about the artwork
- MaterialVideo, color, sound, 1/1 AP (of an edition of 5, plus 1 AP)
- Video length15:35 Mins.
- Year of acquisition2025
- Inventory numberUAB X
- On viewOn view
- Copyright© Martine Syms, Courtesy of the Artist and Hoffman Donahue, New York / Los Angeles
More about the artwork
In her works, Martine Syms examines representations of Blackness and its relationship to feminist thought, radical traditions, and concepts of self in a reality shaped by technology and digitality. Syms’s filmic works frequently revolve around digital versions of herself. In “DED” (2021), the artist appears as a digital avatar—based on a 3D scan of her own body—wandering through a vast virtual landscape in an endless loop between self-destruction, death, and rebirth. Her T-shirt bears the words “TO HELL WITH MY SUFFERING” in capital letters—a quote from a poem by the French poet Arthur Rimbaud (1854–1891), which Syms uses as a personal mantra in many of her pieces. The images are accompanied by a haunting pop soundtrack, composed and sung by the artist herself. Alongside the refrain “I want to give and receive infinite possibilities,” the line “The only God is change” also rings out—a reference to Octavia E. Butler’s (1947–2006) dystopian novel “Parable of the Sower” (1993), set in the years 2024 and 2025.
Through unflinching imagery that is peppered with references, “DED” explores themes of pain, isolation, the fragility of humanity, and self-empowerment, touching on the refusal to remain trapped in suffering. “My films are about the way routine experiences of spectacular and mundane violence create insanity and despair. Where humor kisses pain,” as the artist describes it.
