Content warning: brief mentions of racism, slavery

From the 17th of June to the 25th of August 2025, Tate Modern will be showcasing the work of French artist Christelle Oyiri in their newly founded Infinities Commission. The exhibition, titled In a perpetual remix where is my own song?, pulls from Oyiri’s personal experiences in the entertainment industry, exploring the construction of identity under today’s omnipresent digital influence.

Throughout this immersive experience, Christelle Oyiri – artist, DJ, and producer – asks the viewer: ‘In a hyperconnected society, where the image is perpetually staged and corrected, how do the virtual and the material come together in the quest for the ideal body? How do aesthetic practices influence our perception of reality and desire?’

This contemporary exhibition utilises light, shadow, music, and film to dissect the female identity in conjunction with the current digital age where our reality is seemingly intertwined with social media and its enforced beauty standards. Held in the Tank of Tate Modern, you enter into a dark room, dimly lit by various spotlights, containing six bronze statues that sit upon tall, plinth-like speakers. All of these sculptures display the naked female form, specifically that of the artist, Christelle Oyiri, each presenting her body in different states: one shows her in a power-pose like position whilst others, as you go down the line, show her decayed and disfigured, with growths and masses hanging off her head and neck. Another shows her in a devilish fashion, finished with horns and a tail as she gestures towards the viewer. The spotlights highlight one statue as a time as their respective speakers fill the Tank with music – a constant soundscape that is remixed and distorted for each individual statue, providing them with their own unique sound and story. One of these statues is also accompanied by speech that discusses the danger of humanity and commodification of the individual

About halfway through this twelve-minute exhibition, the spotlights dim and a short film is projected on the back wall of the Tank. This begins with historic drawings of black women for sale, vulnerable and naked with their bodies dramatised and figures caricatured, standing before an eager crowd of white buyers. The film then transitions to show upper class white women of a similar time, now adorned in garments to falsely mimic the same bodies that were just derided by their peers, highlighting how female beauty and its societal perception is not and has never been fixed; instead, its goalpost continues to shift, forever out of reach for most, if not all. We are then shown how this haunting standard has followed us into our current digital age, perpetuated mostly by social media and it fickle trends.

The film continues to feature clips and snippets from strip clubs, memes, and a cosmetic surgery operating table, all accompanied by a distorted symphony of music and jungle-esque beats with a haphazard yet engaging light show of colours and shadows. Alongside the music and lights, we hear the frantic rant of a young woman detailing the routines and procedures that she deems necessary to remain young and beautiful in the oh so critical and catching eye of society and social media – our very own Big Brother. The film ends rather abruptly but the music continues and the spotlights return, paroling around the room with no clear target, shining light on the bronze statues and casting their shadows on the walls. This light and sound sequence marks the end of the exhibition.

Being the first of many Infinities Commissions to come, Oyiri has set a high standard for future artists to meet. In this immersive and engaging exhibition, Christelle Oyiri masterfully manipulates light and sound to convey the current undeniable entanglement of identity and digital media, married together for better or worse in the complicated and destructive union seen in our current age, leaving us all unable to distinguish between the two, between ‘the virtual and the material’. Due to its relevant and enlightening themes, I truly believe that this exhibition is one worth everyone’s time – especially with that time only being twelve minutes.

In a perpetual remix where is my own song? is available to view at Tate Modern until the 25th of August, everyday 10:00–18:00. It is free, so it could not hurt to give it a go – I insist.