This projection work talks about how information and messages are transferred through the internet and delivered to people in this digital era. I am especially focusing on the misinformation produced by internet media and how easily messages lose their original neutral meaning. It has become harder for people to seek truth from the internet even though we have more and more ways to get information. The purposes of communication are also changed. Finding truth is not the main aim any more, but to persuade someone, to make something seems like truth even if it isn’t.
Message City, 2020, Acrylic, Photo by Yuli Zhao
Message City, 2020, Acrylic, Photo by Yuli Zhao
Message City, 2020, Acrylic, Photo by Yuli Zhao
Message City, 2020, Acrylic, Photo by Yuli Zhao
Untitled, 2020, Acrylic, Photo by Yuli Zhao
Untitled, 2020, Acrylic, Photo by Yuli Zhao
Untitled, 2020, Acrylic, Photo by Yuli Zhao
Untitled, 2020, Acrylic, Photo by Yuli Zhao
Untitled, 2020, Acrylic, Photo by Yuli Zhao
Refraction from the acrylic cubes on the adjacent wall.
This projection work talks about how information and messages are transferred through the internet and delivered to people in this digital era. I am especially focusing on the misinformation produced by internet media and how easily messages lose their original neutral meaning. It has become harder for people to seek truth from the internet even though we have more and more ways to get information. The purposes of communication are also changed. Finding truth is not the main aim any more, but to persuade someone, to make something seems like truth even if it isn’t.
The idea comes from my own experience mostly. As a generation growing up with the internet, internet becomes the place where we know and learn the world. We spend most of our time everyday on the internet and read huge amount of messages, feeling that we know many things, even everything. When we see any information, we deliver it to next person immediately almost without thinking. We have kind of lost the ability of critical thinking and skepticism due to the violent speed of digital time, allowing emotional expressions to take the place of logical discussions. Sometimes, a little disagreement could trigger a verbal battle in this virtual world, emotional and pointless words are coming out from the keyboard without any concerns on the issue itself but only the current emotions. Truth becomes insignificant, facts are buried under emotions and bias.
I’m trying to show this chaotic phenomenon in this projection work. Acrylic cubes with words are used to indicate the storage unit in the computer world. The words and sentences are some news and related comments I collected from the internet. Projection, the pure light works as a metaphor of seeking truth. The acrylic cubes with words are the information with its original meaning. Using the reflections on the other wall to show the meaning lost and distortion through transfer, and the video projection of light change simulate the change of people’s behavior when they discuss issues on the internet. Sound materials are coming form distortion of human speaking voices and electricity sound, trying to build a confusing electronic human and non-human feeling.
Ideally, this project will be shown in a gallery space, and could include an interactive aspect using a Kinect camera to detect people such that when the number of audience members varies, the video projection and sound track will change. In this way the installation simulates the actual complexity of a discussion which varies based on the amount of people involved.