In Nobody Knows for Certain, Shafiq uses this material to create a unique narrative in which she critically reflects on folkloristic fairy tales and examines their philosophy and politics from the perspective of the present. Slavic fairy tales and Soviet stories play a central role in the childhood memories of the generation that grew up in India between the 1960s and mid-1980s. The starting point of the video game installation Nobody Knows for Certain (2023) by Indian artist Afrah Shafiq is the historical cultural exchange between the former USSR and the region of South Asia. In the computer game Everything (2017), on view at JSF Düsseldorf, players can travel through the universe and take on the roles of various animals, plants, and other things, giving them the ability to see the world from different perspectives and to change between various micro- and macrocosms. In addition, OReilly has written screenplays for television series such as South Park and developed fictive video games for Spike Jonze’s Oscar-winning film Her. Starting on 4 June 2023, following the first expansion of WORLDBUILDING, in which works by the artists Koo Jeong A, Ericka Beckman, Porpentine Charity Heartscape, and Pierre Huyghe were added to the exhibition, additional works by David OReilly, Philippe Parreno, Sahej Rahal, and Afrah Shafiq will be included.ĭavid OReilly began his career as an artist working as an animator and is especially known for his short films.
