Auf dem Stuhl is an ongoing visual project initiated by new media artist Yilun. Centered around the chair—a symbolic object in the history of design—it explores its forms, contexts, and cultural signifiers through sustained visual experimentation. The project primarily employs AI-generated imagery, computer graphics, and staged photography as its modes of production. By constructing fictional environments and subjecting chair designs to processes of distortion and defamiliarization, it draws on the formal logic of typological photography to continuously generate a series of "quasi-chairs"—objects that resist use, originate from unknown contexts, and hover somewhere between sculpture and hallucination.
These "quasi-chairs" involve both the deconstruction and recomposition of chair archetypes from design history, while also incorporating eclectic aesthetic references drawn from sources such as indigenous totems, folk art, primitivism, futurism, and organicism. The result is a hybrid visual grammar: one that disengages from functionality and oscillates between symbolic form and sculptural abstraction.
In the quasi-chair series, chairs are often placed in uncanny environments such as forests, deserts, ruins, or digital landscapes. These settings function as semantic incubators, co-creating meaning alongside the chairs and forming a visual system in which simulacra and environment continuously shape one another. This labyrinth of images—part dream, part archive—subtly reshapes the identity, affect, and perception of the chairs themselves. Beneath this system lies a deeper awareness of how technology shapes ways of seeing and modes of production.
As a project grounded in AI and other emerging technologies, Auf dem Stuhl maintains a critical stance toward the technical logics behind image-making. This reflection not only interrogates the aesthetic biases and cultural assumptions embedded in generative algorithms, but also raises broader questions about the power structures linking tools, creativity, and capital in contemporary image production. By juxtaposing AI, CGI, and traditional media such as analog photography, model-making, and set construction, the project seeks to destabilize the binary between “efficient generation” and “authentic capture.” It also weaves together systematic design methods with intuitive, improvisational approaches—resisting aesthetic monotony and the homogenization of output. While embracing the imaginative potential of new technologies, the project remains committed to a practice of image-making infused with critical awareness.
The juxtaposition of these uncanny design derivatives with heterotopic landscapes becomes, in itself, a parody and critique of modern design language.
The project adopts an image-based posture of anti-design, questioning functionalism, aesthetic conventions, and design’s cultural veneration in contemporary contexts. Through parody and defamiliarization, it destabilizes the authority of design language. Works are continuously published on Instagram @auf_dem_stuhl, forming a virtual typological archive of chairs and launching a visual experiment in simulacra, materiality, and cultural imagination.
Most of the chairs in the photos are fictional.
The person behind the account is the artist Yilun, who is from China.
Yes, another key participant in this project is Zihao, who is responsible for all the analog photography in the project.
The name 'Auf dem Stuhl,' which means 'on the chair' in German, is intentionally ironic, as the photos depict chairs with nothing on them. This deliberate artistic choice invites viewers to imagine the stories that might unfold on these empty chairs.
Chairs were chosen as the subject because they are significant objects in the history of design and art, symbolizing human attitudes toward life. They are more than just functional objects; they represent a space of reflection, rest, and contemplation, positioning us between movement and stillness. By focusing on chairs, I can explore various themes related to human existence, such as solitude, community, and the passage of time. Additionally, chairs as a subject allow for a wide range of creative expression, from minimalist designs to elaborate installations, making them a versatile and powerful symbol in my work.
The project explores photography through various methods, including 3D rendering, staged photography, and AI generation, among others. By combining these methods, the lines of authenticity become blurred. Regardless of the method used, the creative process is nearly identical: it begins with scriptwriting, followed by generation, rendering, or shooting, and then concludes with post-production.
I would describe it as mock typological photography. Although not entirely shot in real life, and with some stylistic inconsistencies, the working methods borrow from typological photography, particularly in controlling constants and variables. That’s why I refer to this series of works as mock typological photography. I coined the term 'mopology' by combining 'mock' and 'typology' to describe this type of photographic art. For a more detailed explanation of mock typological photography, you can visit mopology.org.
Yes, this project is open to collaboration and welcomes other artists to participate. If you have any ideas, feel free to email us at connect@aufdemstuhl.com.
