Dajana Krüger

NAD: After working as a photographer, capturing single moments in time, as in “Real Prettiness”, what drew you towards time-based media?

DK: I worked as a photographer for a long time and never really thought about becoming an artist myself. But as I continued to grow through art and photography, the idea of becoming an artist, creating more, and expanding my practice became increasingly interesting to me.

I discovered new things, and I realised that I wanted to build my craft, gain more knowledge, and start creating more ideas through time-based media. It was more something I did for myself than for the degree. I wasn't at the university all the time; I was actually spending a lot of time at home, exploring these ideas on my own. But the university helped me expand my knowledge and discover new ways of thinking. It was something personal that I wanted to explore for myself, so it became part of my process. I was very curious about new technologies, new ideas, and new programmes. I was asking myself, what can you do with art and technology? What can the university offer? And I think that really helped me develop my style and my skills and ultimately helped me grow.

NAD: Was there a particular artist or artwork that influenced your practice? Did you come across something that made you think, “This is something I could explore with time-based media,” or did that interest come more from within you?

DK: I think with time-based media, of course there are artists who have inspired me, but it's more like a spectrum. I have painters who inspire me, performance artists, new media artists, video artists… It's really a combination of all of these influences. I think I'm constantly inspired by everything around me. I'm always thinking, what could be a new idea? How can I develop my own art through what I'm seeing in other people's work? It's always this kind of exchange, a giving and taking. I was very inspired by painting, for example, by Francis Bacon. Even though my work isn't as dark as his, his art is something I really connect with. And then there are performance artists like Marina Abramović or artists working with video, technology, and new media like Jenny Holzer. I could name more and more, because it's not just one artist who inspires me. It's a constant source of inspiration.

NAD: A lot of your work focuses on the human body and the way we communicate through it. What can the body express that words cannot?

DK: What I find really inspiring is how complex the human body is. We have so many different languages through expression, movement, sculptural poses, the senses, and form. And I think saying something through the body without using words is very interesting because it gives you a little secret. Words are mostly there to communicate something directly, whereas everything that has to do with the body and physical language leaves a huge space for interpretation. I think that's what makes it so interesting. It's not a direct form of communication; it gives you a lot of space. That's what I think art should give you as a viewer: the space to feel emotions and interpret something for yourself. Whenever we see the body, we instinctively feel something.

NAD: "Spinning Communion” was created during the COVID-19 pandemic, when physical closeness and human connection became difficult. It was initially conceived as an installation, but you also decided to turn it into an NFT collection. What made you realise that NFTs could actually serve the work’s central idea of bringing people together?

DK: When I started “Spinning Communion”, I didn't think about the NFT aspect at all. I always say that the work comes first, and the NFT is just one medium. It's a way of sharing the work, but it's not the focus. As I developed the installation, which is an ongoing work, I realised that it was never really finished. I'm continuously collecting portraits over time, so the artwork keeps growing and getting longer with each new character. At some point, I realised that collecting is also about community. You're sharing a collection with someone, exchanging something, and creating a social connection. And “Spinning Communion” is exactly the same thing. It's like a mirror.

I created the work and built the whole structure, but people were there creating it together with me. It's a work that exists through many people and through community. That's really the essence of the installation. I couldn't have done it by myself, because then I would be the only actor. But because there are so many different characters, even people who have never crossed paths are brought together within the installation. They're all part of it. Bringing NFTs into the installation was therefore a very interesting aspect. When NFTs were growing within the art world after COVID, I felt that there weren't many NFT projects that were organic or brought much humanity into the space. There wasn't much of a performative or human aspect. I'm always interested in bringing the organic and the human body into something digital, so it felt like the perfect match. It made sense that you could collect each individual picture, while the entire installation exists as the complete Gesamtkunstwerk.

NAD: You use the 360° spinning moving imagery technique throughout your work, alongside repetition and looping. What are you exploring through this technique, and what do you want the viewer to feel or experience that might be different from looking at a static image?

DK: When I started thinking about this technique, which was quite a long time ago, after COVID, I was already moving away from photography. I stopped seeing myself as a photographer and started moving more towards fine art. I was thinking about new ways of photographing people from a different perspective. When I did the first tests with some models, I realised that creating 360° portraits, where the person is spinning and holding their position, creates a very different emotional experience. You can see the whole person, from every angle, and you also give the viewer more time to engage with the character. For me, it was another way of portraying people. From there, I started exploring new ways to represent people from different perspectives. It's also very different for the model to work with this technique, because I think most models have never done anything like it before.

NAD: In a 2022 interview with Right Click Save, you said, “If everything happened on the computer, we would lose our humanity.” How do you balance digital technology with the physical and emotional realities of the people you portray in your work?

DK: It's very important in my practice, not only in “Spinning Communion” but also in the work I'm exploring now and in what I've always done. The source is always analogue. From there, I work my way towards the right medium and find the right language for what I want to express. That's very important to me, because simply being on the computer and creating something digitally wouldn't work. I need the whole process.

It brings new thoughts and can make the work better because you're thinking and working with your hands. You can engage more deeply with what you're creating because you're constantly asking yourself, What can I do? What can I change? Is this the right way? Is this the wrong way? I think I can engage with my work much better when I start with something analogue.

NAD: Still in that 2022 interview, you said, “We are losing something by engaging with AR, VR and social media. I want to keep it real at a time when we can no longer tell what is real or not.” I thought that was a very powerful statement, especially looking at it four years later. How do you feel about that idea today?

DK: I always had a feeling of where we were heading, and I was afraid of it. Afraid, but also excited. I knew there were a lot of dark sides to it, and I wasn't sure whether humanity would find the right path. Nowadays, I feel like we're confronting so many things with AI, and we're really at risk of losing our humanity. As an artist, I increasingly feel that I have a responsibility to bring that back into focus. For me, it's very important now to create spaces where people can lose themselves, like in a museum, in an artwork, or in an experience that brings people together. I think that's something that has changed for me. Of course, I love technology. I love innovation and all the things you can do with it. But if the price is that we lose ourselves and our humanity, then I don't want to use it in that way. I want to use technology to bring us back to where we're coming from. I think it's very important for us to look inward and ask ourselves what humanity actually means to us.

NAD: Your work “Spinning Communion” was recently shown on the giant screens of Times Square as part of "GIANT SIGNALS", a project presented by Disiva. What was it like to take a work centred on intimacy and human connection and place it in such a vast, public environment?

DK: I wasn’t in New York to see it myself, but my friends sent me photos and videos. I think artistically it's very interesting because I love the idea of using public screens for art instead of ads. It's beautiful to see artwork in a public environment, like at Piccadilly Circus or Shibuya in Tokyo, because it gives people inspiration while they're walking and crossing the streets. It's not only about consuming something; it's something deeper than that. Bringing “Spinning Communion" to Times Square was also very interesting because Times Square is a place where everything is rushed. Everything is constantly moving, and it's stressful. Even New Yorkers don't necessarily want to go to Times Square because it can be so overwhelming.

Transforming Times Square into something that slows you down, especially ‘Spinning Communion’, which is a work that slows down because of its pace, because you concentrate on each character as they come and rotate across the screens, was a really interesting aspect for me. You can slow down in a place where there's normally so much craziness happening. That contrast was very interesting to me because I really love contrasts. That's what makes something fun, interesting and exciting. What I want to achieve as an artist is to find places where people can simply be people, where they don't look at their phones, where they can get lost in art, where they can have a safe space, and maybe communicate and interact with other people.

NAD: You've worked across photography, video, digital sculpture, VR and NFTs. Where do you feel your practice is heading now, and what are you curious to explore next?

DK: This year, I had an exhibition called “Blueprint of Identity", which was about a sculpture in virtual space. The source was also people, but I created it in a much more abstract way because I wanted to work more abstractly this time. I wanted to explore how much you can duplicate and multiply a work. The sculpture exists in virtual space, and when you look at it, you have so many different angles and views that you can take from it. In a way, it's like an endless sculpture because you can experience it from so many different perspectives. I wanted to explore the difference between how sculpture worked back in the day, for example, with Rodin, and what it means to create a sculpture in virtual space.

What makes it different? What kind of emotions can you create, and what can you bring into this new form of sculpture? What was really exciting for me was discovering how often the sculpture can change. You can see it from so many angles and explore it in so many different ways that you're constantly changing the identity of the sculpture. That was exactly what I wanted to explore, because I think it also reflects how we interact with technology today. Sometimes we lose our identity while trying to find our identity. We're surrounded by so much information, and there are so many things that we desire or feel that we should desire that we're constantly changing our identity through technology. I think it's overwhelming for everyone. A sculpture can come from one source, but you can multiply it in so many different ways that it almost loses its identity. And then it starts to question: what actually is identity? That's what the work is about.