Polina Lobanova and Josef Seidl are a Berlin-based artist duo whose work challenges the standardized, boring, flat aesthetic of modern computing by exploring the tactile and intimate dimensions of digital devices. Their practice moves beyond the conventional interfaces of contemporary technology, instead creating artifacts that evoke personal engagement, ambiguity, and layered meaning.
Polina Lobanova and Josef Seidl, computer is a feeling, web interface, aluminium case, wooden plate, 2024
Their projects often integrate custom-built electronics, mechanical components, and unconventional interfaces, fostering reflection on the ways we interact with technology. For instance, computer is a feeling (2024, above) reimagines computing as a deeply personal and affective experience, assembling an interface from fragments of the artist’s browsing history to explore how technology could be shaped by care rather than corporate design. Paktomat (2024) invokes a mix of magical thinking and mechanical ingenuity, presenting an automaton that grants wishes - at the cost of one’s soul - thus questioning belief systems in an era of technological commodification.
Polina Lobanova and Josef Seidl, multiple choice game, aluminium case, 2021
Their earlier works also investigate digital-human relationships with a critical and poetic approach. DEWISE FR-ND (2021, above) stages an interaction with a supposed digital assistant that gradually reveals itself as manipulative rather than helpful, exposing the exploitative underpinnings of AI-driven personal assistants. Pocket Stones (2022) introduces an element of chance and materiality through a vending machine that dispenses unique stones, encouraging users to reconsider their engagement with randomness and symbolic meaning. Meanwhile, Ordinary Object (2020) juxtaposes physical and digital representations of stones, questioning whether raw materiality or data-driven abstraction holds more reality.
LINK: Polina Lobanova and Josef Seidl (all images courtesy the artists)
