
How do the Internet and contemporary technologies not just make us make art digitally, painting using an eye movement recognition app, grabbing video from Youtube instead of shooting it ourselves, but differently, really differently? How do artistic practices embedded in contemporary technology not get fascinated by the possibilities of tech, get anxiety attacks about ubiquitous surveillance, deepfake or illustrate the darkness of the Internet threatening to get rid of humans, creatures and the planet, but make art differently? Differently in ways that don’t question known regimes of aesthetics but make impossible their continuation? It’s boring to listen to prophesies about how theatre is outdated and nobody cares anymore, youngster make their stuff on YouTube or in the shadowlands between social media, Pinterest and platforms called stuff like Academia Gothic. Probably equally sad with paintings saturated with emojis or videos with cheaply animated flames. Instead of making art about or using the Internet how can the Internet make art different? This project doesn’t know but started out insisting on not making something or realising an idea but insisted on letting the Internet “propose” what could be done. It was frustrating because nothing happened, nothing showed up except endless web surfing, research and reading. But something did show up, detours, conversations, writing and more writing. Conversations about technology, the Internet, ecology and people, writing trying to reflect what’s going on and some more writing using AI to generate fiction. Finally, a project showed up which will be present here as a browser experience using prompting and algorithms to generate an audio-visual landscape.
What all this is is hard to explain but maybe this is a good sign. And maybe it’s what is important today to allow ourselves to not respond, to not fulfil, submit and deliver but give ourselves up to a journey that has no destination. Thanks to Crimson Coast Dance and other supporters this project was given the privilege to wander without a clear path and in that landscape things started to crystalise that for us were unknown and had no names.