Presented in Is the Fake Real, Stay on the Path draws on a photograph taken by SSG in the salt fields of Uyuni, Bolivia. The image of a railway track across the desert reappears inside a three-dimensional digital model, mounted on a billboard that stands in the rendered landscape. Around it, the track, a carriage, and the desert floor are all computer-generated—a fake reconstruction of the real scene. In generating this terrain, the software produced unexpected golden glitches, seams that fracture the surface like veins of ore. These accidental forms recall the mining histories of the region, where hidden seams once reshaped both community and land.
Presented at SSG's solo exhibition, Is the Fake Real?, Stay on the Path draws on a photograph taken by SSG in the salt fields of Uyuni, Bolivia. The image of a railway track across the desert reappears inside a three-dimensional digital model, mounted on a billboard that stands in the rendered landscape. Around it, the track, a carriage, and the desert floor are all 3d models generated by SSG—fake reconstructions of the real scene. In generating this terrain, the software produced unexpected golden glitches, seams that fracture the surface like veins of ore. These accidental forms recall the region's mining history, where hidden seams once reshaped both community and land. The image is printed on a perforated net curtain and hung within an old wooden window frame, partially open, its glass still intact. This weathered frame acts like a memory-object, its quiet decay echoing the corrosive forces of the salt desert. The curtain's translucency lets the image waver, sometimes present, sometimes fading, like a recollection dissolving over time. Here, the real photograph, the fake digital rendering, and the fragile window frame converge. Stay on the Path in a window that opens on the question of where reality lies: in the photographic trace, the digital model, or the decaying frame that holds them. It suggests that paths—like images—may guide us toward the real, into the virtual, or into the fragile thresholds where memory endures.
