<aside> <img src="/icons/arrows-swap-horizontally_gray.svg" alt="/icons/arrows-swap-horizontally_gray.svg" width="40px" /> Artists included Alice Yuan Zhang, Iris QU Xiaoyu, Rebecca Allen, Ruini Shi, April Lin 林森, XU Haomin and crosslucid
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<aside> <img src="/icons/expand_gray.svg" alt="/icons/expand_gray.svg" width="40px" /> Partners
Chronus Art Center (Shanghai, CN) BI Xin 毕昕 - director of international programs
Collaborators
Studio 10PM
Elinor Hayes (Shape Arts)
Ian Rattray (Clear Voice Enterprises)
Lily Sun (English-Chinese translator/interpreter)
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<aside> <img src="/icons/wifi_gray.svg" alt="/icons/wifi_gray.svg" width="40px" /> Access the exhibition here: https://fordatayouareandtodatayoushallreturn.online/
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"For Data You Are, And To Data You Shall Return" is an online exhibition exploring digital death, rebirth, and reincarnation through various digital media. The showcase, part of arebyte’s "The Body, The Mind, The Soul" programme, includes generative, video, and gamified creations that explore the cyclical nature of existence in technological, physical, and spiritual realms. The exhibition presents expanded video practices, role-playing narratives, and reconnection with devices, highlighting decay, renewal, and rethinking our existence in the digital and environmental domain.
For Data You Are…, lead image, 2023. arebyte Gallery, London.
The title subtly references theological concepts from Genesis, suggesting non-immortality, echoing Chinese Buddhist philosophy and the idea of karma's role in the afterlife. By infusing the interface with generative backgrounds, exposing coded processes, and likening data to "dust you shall return to," the exhibition symbolises the continuous cycle of existence. However, despite the renewal and purpose found in digital realms, systemic infrastructure often introduces barriers, censorship, and capitalist ideologies.
Across cultures and centuries, the cyclical nature of life mirrors the process of data collection and transfer. Visitors contribute data upon entering, which is then visualised as spectral traces of previous users. This passive digital footprint, including interaction patterns and IP addresses, evolves over time, manifesting as heat-maps and visible background code. Visitors can download their personalised data pathways, prompting reflection on data usage and its potential for renewal and rediscovery of suppressed narratives.
The exhibition highlights the symbiotic relationship between users, data, and browsers, revealing extrinsic conditions shaping digital existence. It visualises a ghost within the machinic interface, revealing hidden layers eroded by human interaction and data, serving as a reminder of causality.
Curatorial Notes & Provocations…
Throughout the exhibition planning, Milia and I discussed a lot of topics before deciding more concretely on the focus we wanted to address. We talked about a ghost in the machinic interface a lot, a concept we felt reflected on the idea of a transitional presence, an ethereal essence that bridges the gap between the physical and digital realms. By imbuing the platform interface with a ghostly quality, and by inferring to data as the dust you shall return to, we saw a search to symbolise the continuous cycle of existence, where relics and bodies find new life and purpose within the digital domain that is fraught with barriers, boundaries and censorship.
We also spoke about data and cookies, especially with Studio 10PM who became pivotal in the way we utilised user data in the website. Originally we were keen to have a ghostly reminder of previous visitors, by some sort of translucent mouse signifyng older and dead movement. We decided upon a heat-map as a way of showing your past interactions with the website instead.
Taking into account the way data is mined, manipulated and spread without consent, we spoke about how the exhibition could encourage 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. Referencing dead drops, spectral presences, traces of exploration and digital death, we were keen for the exhibition also acknowledges the barriers and boundaries that exist within such spaces, prompting viewers to question and challenge the limitations imposed on our collective data and the continuous evolution of our existence in the digital domain.
We also spoke a lot about the way you can inspect a website, and what this might mean in relation to back end, codified languages and data attributes given to the works.