Net Art | The Release 無量 (2021)

Description

SJSU Digital Media Art Program 2021 MFA Thesis Show

Type

Virtual exhibitionGenerative art

Tool

Bledner 3DTouchDesigner

Kiki’s work, The Release asks us to imagine a transcendent world in which our consciousness exists without body or identity. Kiki investigates the connection between spirituality and technology, placing the concept of disembodiment in the liminal space between these. She invites participants to imagine themselves in a purely digital, non-physical world, and asks: what would you most want to keep of the physical world? The scent of summer rain, your sense of self, your memories, your children? As you travel through her gentle, boundless world, the undulating imagery, text and soundscape evoke empathy, memory and a state of tranquility...she is here to guide you, to remind you of what you truly love, she is an artist-medium and your only task is to dissolve into the beauty of her vision. — by Laamsha Young

(e)inter-immensity: A chapter in gaston bachelard’s the]poetics of space regarding interior immensities, may have not been conceived with the digital realm in mind. however, it is not a stretch to consider it as an adequate lens for surveying contemporary inner locales. in that chapter, Bachelard suggests that “since immense is not an object, a phenomenology of immense would refer us directly to our imagining consciousness”. kiki wu’s digital art project, the release, proposes delving into such immensities and imaginings. exploring human traditions related to death, the irl realm is transposed to the virtual realm. in many cultures funerary objects and offerings to the dead are part of the rituals surrounding death. participants in this project are asked to share a personal object to the virtual space of the project. these objects are turned into 3d files that become a nft and take part of an online exhibition extending the spiritual body and intention into the digital space. ref: gaston bachelard, the poetics of space (the orion press inc., 1964), 184. — by Marcella Faustini, Co-founder/Director at Cloaca Project

Walkthrough

Full Description

The Release 無量 is a collaborative, conceptual project in which I investigate the trinity that has been experimented in my previous practices - The release from the human body, the release from materialism, and the release from creatorship. Inspired by human traditions regarding death, The Release 無量 is created to inquire whether the human spirit is attached to the material world. Only through death will we realize the true disembodiment from the current world. In The Release 無量, I incorporate the concept of death with a sci-fi idea that we have been imagined since the 70s. “If one day we upload our consciousness to the cloud…..”, “One day we will become collective consciousness….” Yet the question is not finished without asking, “what is the human legacy that should be included in the collective consciousness?”

The Release 無量 includes people from different backgrounds. They reflect on their lives and contribute sacred offerings to a fictional world. They were asked to imagine a virtual world freely made by a wish, praying for the virtual version of their future selves. Their offerings to the virtual world were transformed into 3D files and remixed into art which was generated by brainwaves. All of this was then exhibited in a unique virtual New Art City ceremony created to celebrate their "death" and relieve the pains of their current lives.

The Release 無量 also serves as a self-reflective and semi-autonomous system where I perform as both the programmer and a machine. I facilitated events before, during, and after the ceremony, utilizing web-browser-based tools to do so: a website, a participating form, a virtual gallery, a video playlist and a collective poem distributed on public platforms. When sorting data and creating 3D humanoid containers for dedicators’ objects, I became a praying machine who generated unpredictable outcomes based on dedicators’ submission. Finally I can connect my people with my machines.

《The Release無量》是一項實驗性的群眾參與計畫，其中我探討在我過去作品中不斷反覆變化的三位一體——從人類身體型態釋放，從唯物主義中釋放，從創作者的身分釋放。受各個文化中關於死亡及葬禮的傳統所啟發，《The Release無量》計畫探究人類的精神是否依附於物質世界。唯有通過死亡，我們才能理解到何謂真正脫離現世、去身體化。在《The Release無量》，我將死亡與科幻文本中不斷出現的概念結合，「如果有一天我們把自己的意識上傳到雲上......」「總有一天我們會成為集體意識......」然而，在探討這些問題的同時，我們不免必須詢問:「應該包含在集體意識中的人類遺產是什麼?」。《The Release無量》邀請來自不同背景的人。他們反思自己的生活，為我所創造的虛構的世界裡貢獻神聖的祭品，那可以是一段觸覺記憶、一張家庭照片、一個3D掃描物件。他們提供給虛擬世界的東西被轉換成3D文件，再混合成腦波演算藝術。這些資料都呈現於New Art City虛擬城市中，透過線上超渡，這個儀式慶祝了奉獻者的「死亡」，緩解他們當前生活中的痛苦，也幫助人們進一步思考作為人類，生命中最重要的事物究竟是什麼?