4A Lab

Current Does Not Mean New: Chronicles of Online Reincarnations curated by Yanti Peng



Current Does not Mean New: Chronicles of Online Reincarnations tap into terrains of selfhood online, of avatars, of play pretend, of being able to archive and hyper-curate. The ideas pertaining self expression are not new, yet its format continues evolving, our iterations growing. Through digital practices and mixed media, the exhibition aims to uncover facets of how we operate online and its influence on our AFK self.

The invasive reliance of digital tools in the everyday creates a normalcy. Often we dismiss the need to trace the exploitative and technocratic tendencies that are reproduced within technological innovation, forgetting their infections on tools for self-expression which the internet claims to facilitate.

In the latent space of internet hubs, how does self expression fit within the secrecy, speculative, and at times exclusionary state of the internet?

Through collective gathering, both online and offline, the exhibition aims to demonstrate ongoing research of self. Curated by Yanti Peng and featuring Jesse Vega, Sinta Wijaya, Yanti Peng and Zachariah Lee, together they wade through the mobile waves of technology, shapeshifting with their communal identity and explore what it means to reincarnate online.

ROOM SHEET



Video edit by Jesse Vega





you are your face, you become your face, you became your face,
2024
[Photographs on lenticular prints, 29.7 x 42cm]

Problems with loneliness? With connection? With being real? Give these problems of the present a body so they become matters of agency, not spectatorship.

Then when we are confronted with real bodies can we see from both sides of the coin? Or do we categorise into rights and wrongs, scoring as do algorithmic decisions.



M/others.Web, 2024
[Mixed media - iPod classic, wool threads, 3M double sided tape, airbrush, pastel, PVC, projection video, acrylic, varnish, printed paper, wood, MotorChick]

Little-Vin$ent, 2024
[multimedia video, audio by Angus Jin (Nerdie)]
2:48 minutes
640 x 480 px


Hehe

M/others.Web is a physical browser space. The installation is mapped out in the form of a diagram, each object a dependency that framework components of a past browser history. The past browser history of a doomscroll. The eyes in this sense become the search engine skimming the relations within the embedded networks of the work. By browsing through multiple idea threads, the underlying relationship between community, self and system connects.

The iPod humanoid is the engine, technology is not framed to alter self expression, rather it facilitates a simulation. The core text lies on the literal core of the body, “-core” online tends to be used as a suffix to indicate an aesthetic, normally centred around preexisting subcultures or niches. Using “-pilled” as a suffix proliferated through anti-feminist and far-right groups online, originating from the matrix’s red and blue pill, eventually it was utilised in memes to denote that an individual has accepted the worldview implied by the prefix. Combining the suffixes generates a reduction, filtering complex ideas into digestible takes, variables into data. A broadcast for the individual to morph into singularity, participating in a vibe conjured by creating taxonomies.

“Writing yourself back into a narrative that has excluded you can be a tricky process, and capitalism’s Cool Girl invitation to re-invent yourself as “exceptional” within its remit, an exhausting trap” (Walsh, 2024).

Next to the iPod engine, lies the automated MotorChick. She resides within a wooden box of shattered windows, referencing the parable of the broken window by French economist Frédéric Bastiat in his 1950 essay “That which is seen, and That Which is Not Seen” stating the belief that spending money on items that have been destroyed does not lead to economic gain. The perspective to determine judgement based on production and value permeates heavily in the 21st century, economic theories now philosophy. She’s doing her best - yes you can touch her.

Technologies embed mechanisms to direct, supervise and orchestrate. In our exchanges with our phones, everything from our usage to a post undergoes numerical evaluation, embedding time and the self as an economic resource and brand. For accruing images, information, tips, status, connection are driving forces in which we find value in technology.

Through performance activation and programmed mechanic movement the work aims to bring forth the viewership and invisible labour that is attached with the presentation of self online. To find a performer that will receive my work, Airtasker was used, an application that enables exchange for labour with money. To exist is to be seen…this echoes in our ability to pay for visibility in post boosts, through money we can accumulate all that we desire. If late-stage capitalism prioritises wealth and accumulation above all, how does money play a role in viewership? In how the self materialises through virtual spaces? How does that alter our collective presentation and performance of self?

Jacob Z receives $60 for his work.

Callus, economic value and aesthetic feeds into a system of thinking propagated by those with power, trickling down to reformat identity through its avatar. Like a mother, our machine guides our pattern of thinking and habits, gently, softly, at times, unknowingly.

Opening Night Performance:
Jacob Z with MotorChick