ESSAY—GOING DOWN IN LUXURY

"My friend looked at me conspiratorially and suggested removing the pool ladder." Lena van Tijen writes that before she knew what 'sadist' meant, she turned out to be one. In this essay, Lena explores the difference between seeming human and being human. The starting point is the exhibition Whatever Remains Unchanged is Already Dead by Diana Gheorghiu, Jill Verweijen, and Linnéa Gerrits, which will be on display at Das Leben am Haverkamp from Friday, September 27.

Before I knew what 'sadist' meant, I thought I was one. It was 2005, and my father had given me The Sims 2, a computer game I was allowed to play when I stayed with him on weekends. For those unfamiliar, The Sims is a simulation game where you build houses, create people, and simulate life. As a teenager, I spent hours in my computer-generated dollhouse. At first, I was sweet, and the game proceeded peacefully. But over time, I began to wonder what would happen if I stopped feeding my Sims or forced them to stay up by removing all the beds from their house. It started with a small experiment. I locked the father of my Sim family in a room and removed the door. Meanwhile, I resumed normal activities with the rest of the family. The father died. A gravestone appeared in the garden.

Since I only played the game on weekends, at my father’s house, in another city, I didn’t know how my peers treated their Sims. The way I mistreated my “dolls” remained my secret. This changed when, in high school, I played the game at a friend’s house. We had built a villa with a swimming pool and made our Sim swim laps. My friend looked at me conspiratorially and suggested removing the pool ladder. The little figure waved its arms and drowned. My friend and I laughed. The dark impulse wasn’t unfamiliar to her either.

While playing The Sims, you act as a kind of deity, deciding the fate of the little people on the screen. As an adult, I wonder why my friend and I—and likely many others—didn’t have more compassion for our creations. I reflect on this as I look at the work of Romanian artist Diana Gheorghiu. Her computer-generated images and animations feature figures that resemble Sims. They appear human without being human. And in this, she says, lies their malleability.
I spoke with Gheorghiu at the end of the summer at The Hague based collective and artists' initiative Das Leben am Haverkamp. She is working with Jill Verweijen and Linnéa Gerrits on setting up Whatever Remains Unchanged is Already Dead. Among artists who work with CGI characters, Gheorghiu says, the 'uncanny valley' is a well-known phenomenon: “when a figure is not human enough to seem ‘real,’ but also not artificial enough to seem ‘fake.’” She refers to the work of Ed Atkins, whose characters she calls moving cadavers—alive, yet soulless.
Still, Gheorghiu is no puppet master. According to her, she is not the one playing with her human-like figures. She came to the Netherlands at twenty-five, intending to stay for six months. After completing a degree in Communication and PR in Bucharest, she became immersed in Amsterdam’s underground techno scene as a VJ. She combined the skills she gained there with the knowledge she gained during her photography studies at the Royal Academy of Art (KABK). Ultimately, the two merged into her art practice. “The computer stands between me and my characters,” she says. “I don’t control the computer, so I don’t control them either.” By this, she means not that the computer has all the power, but that both she and the machine are links in a larger chain.

Nowadays, Gheorghiu outsources the CGI work to animator Tristan Gieler. Although the animations have technically improved, the artist doesn’t strive for perfection. “Preserving glitches is important to me,” she says. These errors matter because Gheorghiu’s work brings together two kinds of alienation: the idea that something looks too real and that something is just slightly off. This feeling aligns with a sentiment embedded in the subject of her videos: the wellness industry.
A few years ago, Gheorghiu’s grandmother was diagnosed with cancer. After undergoing multiple surgeries and chemotherapy, a friend recommended an alternative treatment in the form of a strict detox diet. When her grandmother recovered, the artist’s family celebrated the healer, overlooking, much to Gheorghiu’s frustration, that conventional treatment had also played a role.
Sometimes things are too good to be true. And sometimes, when something seems off, it actually is. Yet, there’s a unique allure to the idea that everything can be controlled, even one’s own health. Gheorghiu is interested in people who want to be all-powerful and believe this can be achieved. People who are convinced that they can shape their lives entirely, as long as they have enough capital. As long as the cash flow keeps going, they believe they can protect themselves from almost anything—even the end of times.

In the exhibition Whatever Remains Unchanged is Already Dead, which Gheorghiu realizes with Verweijen and Gerrits, the focus is on Armageddon. This isn’t the first time the artists have collaborated. The three met at KABK, where they studied photography. While Gheorghiu transitioned from the camera to the computer, Verweijen and Gerrits became increasingly interested in staging a photograph rather than in the act of photography itself. “Building a location and setting up a presentation became the most important aspects for us,” Verweijen explains.
In 2023, Verweijen and Gerrits assisted Gheorghiu in presenting her animation You are Light and Cabbage, shown during Prospects at Art Rotterdam. In the film, three characters—a yoga mom, a right-wing Silicon Valley businessman, and an anti-vax fitness enthusiast—find themselves at a country retreat where they grow their own vegetables. On their way back, they experience a near-death encounter guided by a deity resembling a cabbage. This work raises questions about what so-called “fitfluencers” and wellness fanatics mean when they claim to want to return to nature. Gheorghiu also critiques the self-centeredness of this community. To emphasize her message, Verweijen and Gerrits constructed a temple to altruism—a pointed altar adorned with plush carpets and silver-colored cloths.

Unlike during Prospects, the emphasis in The Hague is more on artistic collaboration than on support. “The project began with my curiosity about luxury bunkers,” says Gheorghiu. These private shelters, sometimes equipped with movie theaters and swimming pools, are the height of both opulence and bleakness. “No one wants to go into a bunker as much as they want to get out of one.” And yet, the super-rich continue to build them. According to the artist, this is because of what these structures promise: an “out.” A way to escape the world they helped destroy.
In Gheorghiu’s animation, which shares the same title as the exhibition, the characters from You are Light and Cabbage make a return. Together, they’re exiled to a remote island where they have unlimited access to wellness therapies. One of these treatments is performed with the help of an MRI machine. To the artist, this machine shares a trait with a luxury bunker: both uphold the illusion that the inevitable can be postponed.
Gheorghiu gave Gerrits and Verweijen considerable freedom in designing the exhibition’s set. They, in turn, drew inspiration from the headquarters of the French Communist Party in Paris, designed by Oscar Niemeyer. The building’s exterior, they say, resembles a pregnant woman, and the interior is characterized by obvious round shapes, with green carpeting throughout. Niemeyer inaugurated the complex in 1980. In a way, it has withstood the test of time, yet it has also been marked by it: the building is both outdated and futuristic.
The round shapes of Niemeyer’s design are introduced in multiple parts of the exhibition by Verweijen and Gerrits. The most striking is a corridor that leads to an open space where Gheorghiu’s animation is projected. The corridor is inspired by an MRI, and while the building in Paris resembles a pregnant woman, this corridor evokes a birth canal—a passage one must go through on the way to a new beginning. Niemeyer’s old-fashioned green carpet is also significant to the artists. “Wealthy people want something old and something new at the same time,” says Gerrits, “as long as it’s not available to others.”

At the heart of the exclusivity of the wellness industry lies a class struggle. The ability to play god isn’t accessible to everyone. Gheorghiu, as well as Gerrits and Verweijen, do not position themselves outside this trend but rather aim to spark a conversation. “When I buy secondhand clothing,” says Gerrits, “I’m also looking for something unique, something no one else has.” This tendency isn’t inherently harmful. It becomes problematic when one group of people, due to the resources at their disposal, considers themselves more unique—and thus more immortal—than others.
The Sims is a simulation game. With a few cheat codes, you can be as rich as you want, build what you want, and live how you want. But even in the game, life is finite. We all die, even with juice cleanses and a sunlight diet. That seems to be the message in Diana Gheorghiu’s work: no one can escape the downfall. No matter how hard one tries, especially not when thinking the rest of the world can be outsmarted.

Read more about the exhibition Whatever Remains Unchanged is Already Dead here.

Autor: Lena van Teijen
Editor: Laure van den Hout (Mister Motley)

Image: Diana Gheorghiu – video still Whatever Remains Unchanged is Already Dead, 2024.