aaajiao: We are gradually losing our offline identities and personas

aaajiao: We are gradually losing our offline identities and personas

Written by Long Xingru

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The upcoming 2020 exhibition "Cave Simulator" at AIKE delves into aaajiao's long-standing exploration of technology and media—particularly "data"—and their piercing and shaping influences on individual roles, actions, and social structures, along with the resultant aesthetic landscapes.

In aaajiao's (Xu Wenkai) Shanghai studio, there is an S-shaped doorknob that, when illuminated from inside, casts a shadow forming an infinity symbol (∞). This brings to mind a peculiar "semi-solid, semi-virtual" scribe that appeared in the 1985 group exhibition "Les Immateriaux" at the Centre Pompidou (exhibition dates: March 28 to July 15, 1985). In aaajiao’s own words: “Today, it is nearly impossible to find an object that exists purely in either the physical or virtual world.” Indeed, aaajiao's recent works seem to engage with the emergent gestalts under the coexistence and interplay of physical and virtual realities.

As one of the most active "new media artists" in the domestic scene, aaajiao's career has been thoroughly profiled by numerous media outlets—spanning his background in computer science, early years as a music critic and initiator of "new units," and a "model worker"-like regimen of almost annual solo exhibitions over the past decade. Moreover, his works have been included in the global exhibition repertoire of media art, appearing in group exhibitions such as "Art in the Art of the Internet, 1989 to Today" at the Institute of Contemporary Art Boston (exhibition dates: February 7 to May 20, 2018), "unREAL. the Algorithmic Present" at the House of Electronic Arts Basel (HeK) (exhibition dates: June 8 to August 20, 2017), and "Globale: Global Control And Censorship" at the ZKM Center for Art and Media in Germany (exhibition dates: March 10, 2015, to July 31, 2016). In his recent solo exhibitions "Generation Screen" (exhibition dates: December 14, 2013, to February 15, 2014), "Code: aaajiao" (exhibition dates: January 16 to March 8, 2015), "User, Love, High-Frequency Trading" (exhibition dates: May 27 to July 2, 2017), and the upcoming "Cave Simulator" slated to open at AIKE in 2020, aaajiao's long-standing focus on technology and media—particularly "data"—has critically examined their puncturing and shaping effects on individual roles, actions, and societal structures, as well as the aesthetic landscapes that emerge from these interactions.

In many eyes, aaajiao is consistently seen as a sophisticated practitioner of "technologies" such as digitalization, mobile internet, and artificial intelligence. However, in aaajiao's view, technology has long since receded in his map, being compressed into merely tools or styles. His deeper interests lie in less algorithmically tractable elements such as "attention," "memory," and "the expansion of perception," and he examines how technology processes these elements. The discussions he constructs in a series of works regarding "users" and "bots" are fundamentally existential self-inquiries. They ponder the state of human existence (and distribution) under the ubiquitous technological milieu, the patterns of emotional connections between individuals, and the contemplation of human boundaries.

Jack Burnham (1931-2019), a leading figure in the emergence of Systems Art during the 1960s, once proposed that "software" had shifted from a technical term to a metaphor. He believed that "hardware" was derived from direct, physical, first-hand experiences with tangible objects, whereas "software" emerged through the permeation of mass media, relying on the second-hand experience of simulation and representation. This peculiar metaphor, conceived in the 1970s, appears to still hover over our contemporary contemplation of digitality.

In the works of aaajiao, one often finds the liminal states between materiality and digitality, such as the crowded spaces filled with transparent PVC objects in bots (2017-2018) or the standing gray-metallic tombstones in Windows Gravestone (2016). They are digital objects endowed with physical materials, analogous to how bots are thoughts spilling over from the digital world. Residing both in Berlin and Shanghai, aaajiao never retreated into the "digital" haven but positioned himself within the tense state where bodily experiences and those based on simulation and representation intersect—perhaps a prominent reality today. Acknowledging the anxiety and potential power of this reality, aaajiao explores the completeness of a localized viewport and the greater imperfections that emerge when zoomed out. Regarding his recent work, Ocula engaged in a talk with him.

「INTERVIEW」

Within the spectrum of Chinese "new media" artists, you exhibit a distinct uniqueness—being deeply entangled early on with "new media" and the subject of the internet, the introduction of the "screen generation" concept, and the attention to "data." Simultaneously, you are also a comprehensive knowledge acquirer. How do you make knowledge from outside of "technology" emerge through the frameworks typically associated with you?

I reflect on many things, merely presenting them in the manner I excel in. Technology is often compressed into a "tool," but in the domain of my own art, it has become a "style." This style does not necessarily possess its inherent attributes: I can use the style of technology to explore spirituality and to reconsider the current state of humanity and society.

After many years of working in this manner, having mastered this style/tool, I am now able to transform it, creating new tools, and my topics of interest have become richer than before. In the early stages of my creative process, I needed substantial time to understand the technology itself. Today, having gained a deeper understanding, I have also become more free.

Looking towards "codename: aaajiao," how has the concept of ID in your recent creations changed in relation to your current "self"? Or, as of 2020, what new understanding do you have about the connection between your online identity and your offline entity?

During that exhibition, the codename seemed more like a pre-internet era handle, a "what's your name online" type of identification. Today, the name "aaajiao" has integrated my online identity situation and has also become the most likely way I am recognized offline. A more intuitive perception is that, to some extent, my online cyber identity/persona has greatly devoured my offline existence. Or rather, people unconsciously agree that the online persona is more likely to represent "you," while the offline you becomes more diminished. This topic is also something I aim to address in my upcoming solo exhibition "Cave Simulator": where the user becomes a bot, and the bot becomes a player. This represents a segmentation.

From my feelings, we are gradually losing our offline identities and personas.

In your creative trajectory, as evidenced in works such as Progress Bar (2017) and Org.a (2016), "data" frequently recurs as a material with temporal, physical, and experiential qualities. Typography, emails, file extensions, computer desktops, progress bars, and "scrambled text" (Lorem Ipsum) seem to collectively form a miniature history of media archaeology. Interestingly, these media objects themselves possess a certain formal language, sometimes even a strong one. For instance, an old progress bar can inexplicably evoke nostalgia, while the humor in computer time settings might be obscure to many. How do you navigate the harmonization between "artification" and the inherent formal language of these media?

In the realm of "artification," I follow a critical thread—when creating numerous works, it is essential for me to locate the metadata of the subjects I am concerned with, that is, their most fundamental elements. Much of my artistic endeavor involves stripping away the superflous to reveal the indivisible core of the issue. Thus, when contemplating digital remnants, I consider fonts, websites, and even scrambled text (Lorem ipsum).

As we are trained by machines, what exactly is this "meta" state of what we perceive as "text"? It is not text in the concrete sense, yet it functions as text. Scrambled text is used in typesetting as filler text; it fills space but carries no meaning. I employ similar methods to tackle the subjects I am interested in. This approach, to a certain extent, has already begun to display its artistic nature.

In my current understanding of "media," I perceive "data" itself as a medium. The metadata I mentioned earlier represents an even more elemental existence. Data is more abstract, whereas objects that can be summarized through metadata are more concrete data collections. Naturally, one can conceive that everything is data; in abstract terms, it is immeasurable and unrecognizable. However, when understood as metadata, it becomes an object that can be categorized.

From ornaments (2013) to Totem (2015), and then to I hate people but I love you (2017) and its fictional characters, I have consistently perceived the "body" as a subconscious thread in your work—even if these bodies exist within the realm of science fiction narratives. I am eager to hear your insights on the "body," especially within the overly exalted digital landscapes.

The works mentioned earlier, including Body Shadow (2014-2015), all involve the body: at times it is merely a form, at other times it is data (or the antithesis of data: very specific physical matter that cannot be encapsulated by data). However, my more definitive thoughts on the body emerged in the past two years while working with bots. I consider it very concrete, yet highly containerized. Within this container, using bots allows one to observe oneself, one's fragmented self, externalized memories. The container nature of the body is most profoundly exemplified in bots.

On the issue of "dwelling," even though we can exist in distributed forms as identified by IDs, the corporeal presence in physical space still encounters daily interactions, casual street corner conversations, and the sensations induced by changing weather, all of which remain non-distributed. After relocating to Berlin, has the "dwelling" pattern of another city altered your work mode, and do the pieces of information you encounter refresh the focal points of your interest?

Bicoastal dwelling in both Berlin and Shanghai has paradoxically led to a greater homogenization of my work pattern, adjusting it to a more comfortable state. Whether it was upon my initial arrival in Berlin or when "just leaving Shanghai," there was a discomfort reflected by the "body as a container": fear and maladaptation.

Today, I perceive this environment as having transformed into a set of scenes. It resembles engaging as a player transitioning from one scene to another, where you can simultaneously observe the existence of two or perhaps multiple scenes. Consequently, when I am able to adopt the perspective of "an observer watching the player," my work mode becomes more relaxed or, perhaps, more unified.

In 2019, your works separated by a decade, A.I. Goooooooooogle infiltration (2019) and Memory Vending Machines (2009), were exhibited in "Brain Hole - Artificial Intelligence and Art" and "The Kind Stranger" respectively. In the first piece, you maintained the visual language of the machine recognition AVA system but "erased" the information within the purple frames. In the second piece, the familiar capsule toy vending machines also served as "empty" receptacles, where the so-called "nano-robots embedded in memory" largely relied on people's imagination. What elements within the technological framework have you actively "emptied out" or "suspended"?

This question seems more akin to the reversal of "metadata." We can conduct research on the objects of metadata, or we can discard it to explore what lies beyond metadata. Alternatively, the deliberate excavation of metadata to create a "void" compels us to imagine and engage with that which is "outside the key." Looking at it now, what I want to present is the matter that exists beyond this metadata (the most crucial, identifiable, and researchable foundational elements), which might paradoxically represent a multidimensional "void": if your research subject is empty, and the external scene is also void, what then can we still do, or not do?

I have always harbored a vague sense that the recent popular discourse, which positions humanity in a subtly "less significant" light, and the seemingly holistic, grand critiques have experienced a loss of certain empathetic state. I am curious about how you view the essence or attitude towards "media" or "technology" today (is essence significant)?

Starting from the creation of the video and installation bot (2017-2018) in 2018 and 2019, my work has been more introspective. You must observe yourself and also understand how to use this self-observation to revisit your memory system: this includes the memories housed within your physical vessel and those externalized memories on social media platforms.

The exhibition "Cave Simulator" at AIKE also represents a more inward journey. I may no longer be fixated on a god-like perspective; after acknowledging my status as a user, it becomes difficult for me to view everything from an "administrator" standpoint. It is challenging for me to observe an object detached from its container, and any such instances that lend themselves to this perspective are already concluded, not dynamic.

If I equate media with data, then to some extent, "media" no longer needs to be singled out; it has conceptually merged with data. It has become a norm, which is no longer a part of my special concerns. Technology, for me, represents a tool I can create, a method of observation and a means to understand truth, and to experience all new queries. I discuss both technology and shamanism, sorcery, and spiritual knowledge, concluding at this stage that all are methods of seeking "truth." On a personal level, I believe that "personal truth is death," but what is the collective truth? I don’t have an answer yet, but I suspect it isn't death. Today, all my work has become both comfortable and difficult because my focus is entirely on how to perceive my own truth.

In my pursuit of "my truth," what concerns me most is the process of attaining it. What aspects still pique my curiosity, and what am I still willing to share? Media and technology are merely footnotes to truth; in the search I aspire to engage in, they become less significant. They are dissolved by the truth.

Could you reveal more about your exploration of the memory system and the "player" worldview as expressed in "Cave Simulator"?

In the "Cave Simulator" exhibition, I focus on the corruption of language, imagery, and visual systems that people utilize today, which post-internet has seemingly legitimized as just. Therefore, I attempt to minimize the extensive use of existing visual materials.

Cave (2020) group of works contains my accumulated materials of "direct experience", such as artificial memory sponge, insulation and fireproof materials. These accidental discoveries are highly artificially synthesized and have a great impact on our survival. In Nature (2018-2019), I used materials that are easily susceptible to natural traces in transportation, which reminds people of things like stone weathering or decay. I wondered if processing materials in a way reminiscent of "traces" could be a possible resistance to the aforementioned "corruption of language". I no longer draw images, but only create traces. It is not a result, but a training.

In the exhibition "User, Love, and High-frequency Trading", I proposed that "the first identity of a person is a user". The concept of "bot" focuses on how we as users explore our memory system. In the logic of "simulator" and "player", I returned to a large amount of "process" experience: how people establish a completely authentic and personal process in a simulator. I am both the player and the observer of the player, just like you can see yourself operating in the computer and the one operating the computer.

In the "Cave Simulator" exhibition, the experience I aim to create is neither one of "build-up" nor of discovery, but rather one of "neither constructing nor leaving behind." It does not point towards a visual outcome, but exists solely as "traces" valid in the immediate moment.

If my body does not support my experience of time, then my identity and perspective could instead indirectly encapsulate our experience of time within this vessel. These ideas might not yet be part of the empathetic system of people at the moment, but I believe they will be in the future. I narrate them in all the ways available to me, as this is all I can do. — [O]