Sam Ghantous: Your Golf Course Made My GPU

Artist Sam Ghantous traces silica from North Carolina mines to both our microchips and Augusta National's sand traps. His three-channel video installation at YveYANG Gallery reveals the geological foundations of our digital obsessions. Through silicon wafer sculptures and layered video work, Ghantous confronts what he calls his "hardware anxiety"—the disconnect between our comfort with screens and our ignorance of their material origins. The same ultra-pure silica that powers your GPU fills the sand bunkers at premier golf courses. This uncanny coincidence becomes his entry point into questions about extraction, desire, and the material costs of our digital lives. Born in Oman and now based in Zürich, Ghantous came to game engines not as a gamer but as a way to understand how everything today tends toward gamification. Using Unity and Unreal Engine as tools for critique rather than entertainment, he builds what he calls "portals"—UV images printed on silicon wafers, framed by rings of sand scanned in his studio. "I'm not standing on some moral high ground," Ghantous admits. "I'm struggling with the temptations, both for new things and for fascinating things, but also trying not to look at my phone more." The work features two voices in dialogue—a synthetic childlike inquisitor and the artist's own voice—toggling between pleasure and guilt. Industrial footage layers with extreme sports. A Chinese sand dredger is described as "editing the map." A golfer remains trapped in a bunker while narration intones about what is built and what is lost. Read the full profile at killscreen.com #SamGhantous #VideoArt #DigitalMaterialism #InteractiveArt #Killscreen