A documentary about voyeurism in graphic novel form, Cyberman chronicles the life of 50-year-old Ari, who streams himself online twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week.
Ari lives in a small town in Finland. He rarely leaves his apartment or has any visitors. He spends his days sleeping or sitting in front of the computer, chatting to his viewers and playing music on YouTube. His stream is continuous and compelling: there is something uniquely intimate about this unadulterated presentation of his self.
For over a year Muchitsch watched Ari’s live stream on Cyberman.tv. He was unaware of her project, but she interacted with him through anonymous online conversations using the pseudonym L.B._Jefferies – a reference to the protagonist of Alfred Hitchcock’s ‘Rear Window’, who watches his neighbours across the courtyard – and embracing the analogy of Muchitsch’s own voyeurism. Cyberman is isolated in a frame on his stream as well as in Muchitsch’s beautifully painted panels on the page. The author also sits alone, in front of her computer screen, as she watches Ari through a frame and documents his life.
Cyberman won the Myriad First Graphic Novel Competition 2020.
Simon Chadwick, Cartoonists' Club of Great Britain
2 July 2022Cyberman is, I think, the most unusual and, perhaps, the most challenging book I’ve reviewed to date.
It’s based on the real experience of Veronika Muchitsch as she dips in and out of Finnish resident Ari Kivikanga’s 24-hour online streaming of his life. Ari never leaves his home, does very little, and by all accounts is not a particularly well man. This makes this bizarre form of second-hand voyeurism as disturbing and worrying as it is intriguing.
Ari is beset with trolls and online abuse, but amongst this daily diatribe Veronika is able to chat with Ari (under the guise of LB Jefferies (the character played by James Stewart in Rear Window) and make a connection with him.
It’s a unique blend of melancholy and despair peppered with a stark and almost brutal honesty. In many respects, it’s unlike any book you will ever have read before. Despite the manner in which Ari is living, Veronika is able to peel back the sadder layers and reveal the real person underneath. This is possible because she takes the time to connect with him, rather than treat him as an oddity or a spectacle to watch. You can’t help but feel that those actions, that culminated in this book, made a positive difference to Ari.
I don’t think I could have ever been one of the viewers of Ari’s day-to-day online existence, but I’m glad I got to read his story in print. A genuinely unique book, from cover to cover.
And if you liked that: Try Coma, by Zara Slattery, also from Myriad, for another unusual book that dares to be a little different and challenge the reader.
The Skinny, Heather McDaid
27 May 2022There’s a lot of chat about how people are sharing their lives online 24/7, but for Ari Kivikangas, that was the truth. Hosting his life at cyberman.tv, he showcased his life in its normalcy for all to see, a self-imposed Big Brother.
Soft and gentle in its illustration, Muchitsch uses simplicity to capture what is, ultimately, extremely ordinary. A man went about his life, invited people in, chatted some. And that’s what Cyberman does: invites readers into Ari's life, just like his stream. There's no refined start point, plot twist, crescendo. It’s simple, pleasing, even comforting.
It’s not seedy (“I’ve masturbated on webcam before though. That was not cool. It was really stupid”); it captures fun back and forths (“Rammstein is rocking your pants”), and moments that dip into the life beyond the camera, like Mark Zuckerberg as a personal hero (“He is a very good programmer… Also he is fucking rich and I’m very poor”).
It’s also a very sweet ode. Muchitsch writes in an epilogue that the pair kept in touch and she shared some of the work going into the book; he passed away before being able to see the graphic novel in its final form. Often wordless, the pages all blur together to capture a normal person doing normal things, and showcases how not all stories and lives need to be astronomical in scale to leave its lasting impact and be worthy of documenting.
Sacha Craddock, critic and curator, competition judge
13 January 2022A large section of the delicately drawn surface changes colour, a t-shirt has been replaced, and the cat has moved. From page to page, screen to screen, the open and yet obviously vulnerable man answers questions typed across the screen. In apparent real time, immersed in a place where virtual and real have merged, Cyberman, with touching honesty, carries on his claustrophobic, potentially catastrophic, pursuit of extended space.
