Meet Alex See | Artist Dialogue
July 08, 2025
We recently had the pleasure of speaking with Berlin-based multidisciplinary artist Alex See, our full conversation is shared below.
Your process reconstructs familiar images into unfamiliar forms using material distortion techniques. Can you speak a little bit about what inspired this unique practice, and what role misrecognition plays in your art?
I have always been interested in the idea of the digital image – something that can be infinitely copied, altered, processed, and algorithmically analyzed. This led me to a persistent question: is it possible to create an image that has never existed before, especially in a time when billions of images are produced, photographed, generated, and shared every day?
I began by experimenting with digital images at a fundamental level, using shader language as a complex environment for manipulation. My approach was to break down the image structurally and reassemble something new from its fragments. Eventually, I developed a process involving advanced pixel sorting techniques, and I was satisfied with the results.
Later, I became curious whether a digital image could become something more—whether it could take on a material form while preserving the traces of its digital transformation. I experimented with various materials and processes, and eventually realized that fabric should be the base. If paper is two-dimensional and bends only in X and Y, fabric is three-dimensional for me, with spatial and flexible qualities. I developed a multi-layered technique that allows the work to exist as both image and object, making the digital transformation physically present.
What kinds of textures or forms do you pull inspiration from in your day to day life? This could be from the natural world, a moment in your upbringing, etc.) Why do you think that is?
The forms and textures in my work emerge from the logic of digital transformation. I don’t have complete control over how the image is disrupted – my role is to choose the source material, whether it’s my own photographs or found images like satellite or surveillance footage. The transformation processes encode and fragment the original, generating results that are partly familiar, partly unfamiliar. The physical form is again shaped by the unpredictable nature of these manipulations, where the image becomes something new and ambiguous.
What piece of media, theory, or question has been shaping your work lately?
Generally, my practice is influenced by how I experience the world right now – living through crises, multiplying conflicts, and new threats like the potential AI slope or the silent technological singularity. With the acceleration of information, technology, and artificial intelligence, I am left with a sense that everything around me is becoming seemingly familiar, yet fundamentally altered, almost as if viewed through a motion blur at high speed.
In terms of theory, one recent thing has been the book The Object Stares Back by James Elkins, which explores the idea that what we see is never complete – our vision is always an interpretation, not giving us any objective knowledge. To me, it’s connected to ideas in speculative realism and Timothy Morton’s concept of hyperobjects, where we encounter only partial manifestations of things that can never be fully grasped. I think in my work, I am also searching for that a sense of full understanding or perception of the object, even though any completeness is absolutely out of reach.
We're grateful to Alex for opening up this conversation, which marks the beginning of a more intimate series of artist dialogues—Kive’s continued effort to trace the evolving contours of artistic context across disciplines and geographies.
ALEX SEE
Learn More: https://sebiakin.fyi/info
Instagram: @alexssseee
Photo Credits: Alex See
