Ghost in the Machine
Celacious666, Rainer Ciar, Fei Gao and Kalanjay Dhir
30 May - 28 June 2025
Image courtesy of Fei Gao
What if we find our souls to be enmeshed in media and fictional imaginings?
That the ghosts of us reside and stir within other vessels or interfaces; our realities (re)written, performed, and embodied even though we know it all to be a story. To describe a feeling through giving it a face — to use it as a mask or a shield. What if I’m more real when I’m projecting?
Ghost in the Machine explores how fiction, anthropomorphisation, and avatars may reflect psychological realities. Interested in memories, spirits, and digital cultures while acknowledging the material impacts and weight they hold, the artists create characters and alternate personas through costume, fan work paraphernalia and puppetry.
Ghost in the Machine brings together Celacious666, Rainer Ciar, Fei Gao and Kalanjay Dhir, whose shared interests in avatars and embodiment were born from fiction and digital cultures. Reliving memories and emotions through roleplay — by creating costume, illustrations and fanwork, the artists manifest alternate personas and characters that give body and form to psychological landscapes. Mediated through degrees of separation, these fantasies are part escapist, part confrontation with being human. In wearing our masks as extensions of ourselves, we may all embody others and share in their lives, loves, and sorrows for a moment.
Celine Cheung (she/her), a
s a visual artist, is most intrigued by interpersonal relationships, queer coming-of-age and secrets. She fashions confessional narratives through art, using mediums available on hand spanning installation, drawing, performance etc. Her art is often guided by visceral responses to love and loss, but she is also interested in excavating the uncanny, uncomfortable or embarrassing. She practises on unceded Dharug land.
Celine is making art as Celacious666.
Celacious666
xxX making fanart & fics Xxx special thx 2 my baby sib @louiruii 4 helping me wif w0rldbuild!ng & some of da illos. U rok! k@$h ur da luv of my deprzzing lyf u rok 2! MCR ROX!
@celinc.c
https://celinecheung.com/
Rainer Ciar (he/they) is a multidisciplinary artist, writer, and freelance illustrator and graphic designer living and working on Dharug Country (Western Sydney). Interested in internet and pop culture, gaming, and their own experiences of gender and youth, Rainer explores and plays with the tension between imagination, nostalgia, and isolation in their work.
@rainerciar
https://rainerciar.com/
Fei Gao (they/he) is an artist who works with building characters and worlds through costumes and environments. Inspired by toys, video games and TV show supervillains, much of their practice is playful, interactive and performative. They are recently exploring how renavigating past traumatic events through altered egos and worlds could result in healing, connection, and transformation.
@feithebeast
https://feigao.info/
Kalanjay Dhir (he/him) is an artist and musician based in Sydney on unceded Dharug land. His work draws on popular culture, sci-fi and history, using sculpture and video. Kalanjay likes to make up near-future worlds that imagine hopeful ways humans could relate to their environment. He enjoys thinking about the imprint that terrestrial human consciousness will leave on the earth and surrounding cosmos.
@kalanjay
https://kalanjay.com/
Ghost in the Machine
By Celacious666, Rainer Ciar, Kalanjay Dhir and Fei Gao
30 May - 28 June 2025Outer Space
Open Wednesday to Saturday, 10am–5pm
420 Brunswick Street,
Judith Wright Arts Centre,
Fortitude Valley, QLD
Exhibition Text
By Tess Bakharia
COMING SOON
Public Programs
6pm–7pm
Friday 19 June 2025
Free entry, all welcome
RSVP COMING SOON
Fei Gao acknowledges SIRC_UIT for providing an opportunity to preview the work.
Audience Advisory
Please be aware that some works may include discussions of mental health and stylised depictions of blood.