For Data You Are, And To Data You Shall Return为数据所生,亦归数据而去

Co-presentation with arebyte on Screen (AOS), a platform dedicated to artist videos, digital experiences, curatorial interventions, and programming utilising web-based formats, and We=Link, an online exhibition platform initiated by Chronus Art Center.

2023.11.16 - ∞

 

Artists: Rebecca Allen, crosslucid, April Lin, Iris Xiaoyu Qu, Ruini Shi, Haomin Xu, Alice Yuan Zhang

Curators: Rebecca Edwards, Milia Xin Bi

 

Co-produced & Co-presented by arebyte Gallery and Chronus Art Center

With the support of Arts Council England

 

For Data You Are, And To Data You Shall Return is an online exhibition of generative, video and gamified works exploring diverse perspectives surrounding digital death, renewal and reincarnation in the virtual domain. Surveying the nuance of long-standing and newer ruminations around the circularity of life and death, in technological, bodily, and spiritual contexts, the exhibition sees death as a narrative with which to discuss life. Death in the digital world is, in a particular dimension,  describable, observable, and even manufacturable, as well as manageable and repairable. Life in the digital world is, on the contrary, more mysterious. While we acknowledge its nature of growth and the possible need for disruption, articulating precise determinations regarding its substance and characteristics remains elusive.

The online exhibition forms part of arebyte’s The Body, The Mind, The Soul programme and comprises works that span a range of digital media processes and outcomes; from hypnotic encounters with concealed code to custom playful gamifications, and planetary-scale simulations, the exhibition presents expanded video practices, role-playing narratives and reconnection with devices and their material origins, drawing links between communications across ethers and the encounters of rogue or unknown agents acting on behalf of their meatspace counterparts. Decay, sites of renewal, and rethinking our existence in the digital and environmental domain are foregrounded.

Reflecting on the idea of there being a transitional presence imbued within digitised works, the boundary between online and offline is negated: instead, the exhibition speaks to the circularity of these two ways of being through mediation of the screen and argues that one does not supersede the other.

The exhibition title is a subtle twist on the theological reference in the book of Genesis which infers non-immortality. This concept aligns with the Chinese Buddhist philosophy of “sheng-si-lun-hui,” which is tied to the idea of karma and its role as social currency in the afterlife. By imbuing the interface with a uniquely generative background - a mystical quality of exposing the underside of codified processes - and by referring to data as the dust you shall return to, the exhibition seeks to symbolise this continuous cycle of existence of all things. Although relics, ideas and bodies find renewed energy and purpose within these digital domains[1], the underlying systemic infrastructure (unless decentralised and autonomous) means that they are often fraught with barriers, boundaries and censorship, as well as capitalist ideologies.

Throughout centuries and across various cultures, the cyclical nature of life can be linked to the process of data collection and transference. When entering the exhibition, users inherently contribute their data as they would on any site (including IP addresses, interaction patterns, and browser preferences), which is then subsequently utilised within the exhibition to evoke spectral traces of previous visitors as vibrant data visualisation. When the user leaves the site, they leave this data behind, which on other websites is often referred to as a passive digital footprint, where websites collect information about how many times users visit, their location, and their IP address. Additionally, other markers and traces are also left in the exhibition which become layered over time and are expressed through heatmaps, background code that becomes visible over time, and unique experiences of some works that rely on particular user data to function.  In this manner, the website transforms into a commemorative space for past guests; each user can download their personalised data pathway at the end of their session as a reminder of their data usage. Taking into account the way data is mined, manipulated and spread without consent, the exhibition encourages contemplation of how the digital space can become a sanctuary for renewal, healing, and the rediscovery of lost or suppressed narratives via this same data.

As long as we log in, load data, perform computations, and enter inputs, we are confronted with the effects of our complex, multifaceted, multi-platformed existence; the exhibition addresses this symbiotic relationship between user, data and browser suggesting a matrix of extrinsic conditions. For Data You Are And To Data You Shall Return visualises a ghost in the machinic interface, an active agent making transparent that which is often hidden, and made present by “layers” of the site eroding through the presence of human interaction and data left behind. A reminder of causality.

Technological objects interplay with time; technologies discipline and alter the trajectory, perceptual space and the scale of temporality, yet are inevitably corrupted by it. In a long epitaph in The Dead Media Project, Bruce Sterling offers condolences to "the failures, collapses, and hideous mistakes of media"[2]. The birth of some technological applications is imbued with an inevitable being-towards-death - you always need to replace an old machine with a new one, as long as you are still using it. Is this death and rebirth circle of technological objects, in fact, a misunderstanding of the true nature, temporality and behaviour of technology led by commercial pressures and marketing intervention?

Jussi Parikka and Garnet Hertz's Zombie Media theory continues further from Sterling’s ideas by claiming that “media do not die but persists as electronic waste, toxic residue, and its own sort of fossil layer of disused gadgets and electronics"[3]. The media of interest in this exhibition, the digital entities, are, as mentioned by these media theorists, dislocating and attaching themselves in bundles of yellow fibre-optic cables, underneath the geological strata, within the mountains, and under the oceans, participating in the life and decay cycle of transistors, dust, gravel, water droplets, and barnacles.

Apart from the decomposition and metamorphosis of their material basis, digital entities also perform by being replaced, decrypted and obliterated through processes of time, changeable systems and planned obsolescence. Technologies extend humans' memories, however, they also become forgotten in the process of forgetting. Deleted photos, unattended games, abandoned blogs, and obsolescent software, the advanced development of digital entities made its ontological presence a flickering uncertainty. There always seems to be an iteration that makes the "death" in the digital world seem like an optimising “reborn”. Nonetheless, ancient codes have always been the underlying computer language's profound and immutable logic, becoming a hidden act of spelling, a psychic that manipulates hardware, a ghost that latches onto the material substrate.

For Data You Are, And to Data You Shall Return is a decaying exhibition: the interface is gradually stripped down to its code, which may one day cease to function[4]; alternatively, and more likely, it will fade away in people's memories and become the fault of Epimetheus[5]. However, for it is data, and so to data it shall return, the exhibition will haunt in/on the cloud, waiting for an inadvertent click and resurrection.



[1] Both new and old digital domains from the early Web to the expanded metaverse
[2] Sterling, B. (1995) The DEAD MEDIA Project: A Modest Proposal and a Public Appeal. Available at: http://www.deadmedia.org/modest-proposal.html (Accessed: 20 September 2023).
[3] Hertz, G. and Parikka, J. (2012) ‘Zombie Media: Circuit Bending Media Archaeology into an art method’, Leonardo, 45(5), pp. 424–430. doi:10.1162/leon_a_00438. 
[4] due to server anomalies, hosting issues, or many other problems…
[5] Drawing inspired from Bernard Stiegler's book Technics and Time,1: The Fault of Epimetheus (La technique et le temps, 1: La faute d'Épiméthée), this term references forgetting and explores the potential and origins of technological advancements driven by forgetfulness or errors.

We=LinkAOS(arebyte on screen)联合呈现

2023.11.16 - ∞

 

艺术家:黎贝卡·艾伦(Rebecca Allen),crosslucid,林森(April Lin),曲晓宇,施蕊妮,徐昊旻,张元(Alice Yuan Zhang)

策展人:瑞贝卡·爱德华(Rebecca Edwards),毕昕

 

联合主办及联合制作:arebyte Gallery & 新时线媒体艺术中心

该项目由Arts Council England支持

 

线上展览“为数据所生,亦归数据而去”通过生成式、影像及游戏化作品,从多重视角探索了虚拟领域中的数字性死亡、更新与再生。以技术、身体与精神为语境,展览对生命和死亡之间的循环性展开了长久且创新的微妙思考,并将死亡视为探讨生命的一种叙事方式。在特定的维度中,数字世界中的“死亡”是可描述、可观察以及可修复的;反之,数字领域中的生命却显得更为神秘——我们虽然理解其生长的本质与追寻颠覆性的需求,却难以准确定义其实质与特征。

作为arebyte Gallery发起的“身体、心智与灵魂”研究主题的一部分,展览及其组成作品涵盖了一系列数字媒介的流变与成果:从与隐藏代码的催眠性互动到趣味横生的游戏化定制,再到行星规模的模拟,展览呈现了扩展的视频实践与角色扮演叙事,重新构建了数字设备及其物质起源之间的联系,搭建了跨越以太的链接,并制造了与恶意或未知的肉身行动代理之相遇。展览着重强调了数字的腐败性、网站的再生,以及我们如何重新思考数字或情境领域中的存在。

通过反思数字作品中“过渡性存在”的概念,线上与线下之间的边际被否定;取而代之的是利用屏幕的调节,讲述了二者之存在方式的循环性,并论证并不在非此即彼的情况。

展览标题是对《创世纪》中关于非不朽之神学典故的巧妙诠释,类似的概念也见于中国佛教哲学中的“生死轮回”,后者与业力概念及其作为来世社会认可之作用息息相关。通过赋予界面独特的生成性背景,即揭示代码运作底层的神秘特质,以及将数据称为“你将归于的尘土”,展览试图展现万物存在的持续循环。虽然遗迹、思想与身体在数字领域[1]中找到了新的能量与目的,但其底层系统的基础设施(除分布式与自主化的基础设施以外)往往充斥着障碍、界限、审查,以及资本主义意识形态。

长久以来,在各种文化中,生命的周期性都可以与数据的收集和转移过程联系起来。当用户进入展览时,他们会如同浏览任何网站一样,提供自己的数据包(包括 IP 地址、互动模式和浏览器偏好),随后这些数据将在展览中被利用,过往访客幽灵般的痕迹以生动的数据可视化形式被唤起。当用户离开网站时,数据留了下来,这些数据在其他网站上通常被称为被动数字足迹(passive digital footprint),网站会收集用户的访问次数、位置和 IP 地址等信息。此外,展览还将保留其他标记与痕迹;随着时间的推移,这些数据将逐渐分层,以热力图与背景代码的形式逐渐呈现于观众眼前。除此之外,某些作品的体验也基于特定的用户数据而被激活。通过这种方式,网站变成了过去访客的纪念空间;每个用户都可以在会话结束时下载他们的个性化数据路径,以提醒他们个人数据使用情况。展览不仅考虑到数据是如何在未经同意的情况下被挖掘、篡改和传播,更鼓励人们思考数字空间如何通过这些相同的数据成为更新、治愈和重新发现失落或被压抑之叙事的避难所。

只要我们登录、加载数据、执行计算和输入,我们就会面临个人数据复杂、多面向及多平台存在所带来的影响。展览探讨了用户、数据和浏览器之间的这种共生关系,并提出一种外在条件矩阵:“为数据所生,亦归数据而去”将机器界面中的幽灵形象化,作为一个活跃的代理,展览使通常被隐藏的事物变得透明,让那些因为人类互动及其遗留数据而被侵蚀的网站“层”显现出来——这个幽灵提醒着人们因果关系的存在。

技术物与时间相互作用。技术规训并改变时间性的轨迹、感知空间与尺度,但也不可避免地被时间性所侵蚀。在《死亡媒介项目》长长的墓志铭中,布鲁斯·斯特林(Bruce Sterling)对“媒体的失败、崩溃和可怕错误”[2]表示了哀悼。一些技术应用的诞生不可避免地带着些许“向死而生”的意味——只要你还在使用旧机器,你就需要用新机器来替换它;而这种技术物的生死循环,是否事实上也只是在商业压力和营销干预的主导下,对技术的真正本质、时间性和行为的误解?

尤西·帕里克(Jussi Parikka)与加内特·赫兹(Garnet Hertz)的“僵尸媒体”理论进一步延展了斯特林的观点,声称“媒体不会死亡,而是作为电子垃圾、有毒残留物、废弃小工具和电子产品的化石层而存在”[3]。正如这些媒体理论家所提到的那样,本次展览所关注的媒体——数字实体——正错位地附着在成束的黄色光缆中,在地层之下,山体之中,海床之上,参与着晶体管、灰尘、沙砾、水滴和藤壶的生命周期。

​​除了物质基础的分解和蜕变以外,数字实体也会随着时间的更迭、系统的升级和计划性的报废而被取代、解密或湮灭。技术延伸了人类的记忆,但它也在遗忘的过程中被遗忘:被删除的照片、无人问津的游戏、废弃的博客和过时的软件,数字实体的先进发展使其本体论层面的存在亦成为一种闪烁不定。似乎总有一种迭代,让数字世界的 “死亡”看起来像是优化后的“重生”。尽管如此,古老的代码始终是计算机语言深邃而亘古不变的底层逻辑,它们成为一条隐秘的咒语,一位操纵硬件的灵媒,一具潜伏在物质基质上的幽灵。

“为数据所生,亦归数据而去”是一场衰变的展览:界面逐渐被剥离成代码,它也有可能因为服务器的异常而在某一天停止使用[4];而更可能的,是在人们的记忆中逐渐磨灭,成为艾比米修斯的过失[5];但它将作为自己的存在,为数据所生,亦归数据而去,成为云端的幽影, 等待不经意的复生。

 


[1] 在此指涉的数字空间包括早期的互联网到当下扩展的超感空间。
[2] Sterling, B. (1995) The DEAD MEDIA Project: A Modest Proposal and a Public Appeal. Available at: http://www.deadmedia.org/modest-proposal.html (Accessed: 20 September 2023).
[3] Hertz, G. and Parikka, J. (2012) ‘Zombie Media: Circuit Bending Media Archaeology into an art method’, Leonardo, 45(5), pp. 424–430. doi:10.1162/leon_a_00438. 
[4] 基于服务器异常、托管等不可抗力因素。
[5] 受贝尔纳·斯蒂格勒之著作《技术与时间1 爱比米修斯的过失》的启发,在此指遗忘,以及因遗忘或错误而启发技术进步的可能性与成因。