Alida Sun appears on my screen wearing a bejewelled face mask, with charms hanging from the delicate chains wrapped around it. Oversized sunglasses and bangs cover the rest of her face. When I ask her why she’s kitted out so mysteriously, she explains, “I’m usually very aware of my biometric data, and I just find that anonymity saves a lot of time, especially as a woman.”
Ten minutes later, we’re chatting about how much we both love the internet. “I think there was a really wonderful, very femme digital culture that I was fortunate to grow up in,” says the New York–raised artist who now lives in Berlin. She’s referring to the early days of the internet—Tumblr pages, personal blogs, fan forums and niche online communities—spaces that were often shaped by young women and queer users. Visual experimentation, aesthetics and creative work flourished in such environments. “It was very normal, especially for girls, to customise their own digital environments. I loved creating my own digital spaces, my own sites, all of that.”
Despite her many creative interests, Sun didn’t think she was going to be an artist. She didn’t pursue a formal education in fine art. Instead, she studied engineering. “I needed a job but I could see that the place that I ended up working at—one of those zombie juggernaut corporations—was a sinking ship. And so, growing up being fascinated by code, the digital culture, creating my own sites, all of that dovetailed into meeting many kind, welcoming people within the code art community. They were creating these incredible light installations,” she says. “That’s when I got into programming, because I knew I wanted to create some of my own.”
