Borderless Shelter 無邊庇護所
Digital Art Festival Taipei 2021 台北數位藝術節
2021.12.10 – 2021.12.19
The Red House & Digital Art Center Taipei 西門紅樓 & 台北數位藝術中心
http://festival.dac.taipei/2021/en/
The human race experienced their first great migration from reality to virtual space when the Internet emerged. The invention broke the third wall and revamped the whole concept of “world.” Thanks to the development of search engines that expanded the “virtual universe,” every reality of the modern world has been intertwined and became symbiotic with the Internet in the last twenty years. Digital artists also coexisted and favored this vast, complicated system. From web crawlers to machine learning and artificial intelligence, cloud community culture to virtualization and cyber gaming, the aesthetic creations have escaped the traditional format and created a drastic different look of our era.
After 2020, the epidemic unexpectedly caused a new wave of virtual migration. The new gold rush under the pandemic includes praises for e-commerce, digital currency, and online gaming. Meanwhile, due to the real world’s limitations and disease precaution, all art expression has to turn to the Internet. The borderless web has then become our largest shelter that not only realizes artists’ all kinds of imagination but also challenges the existing social and cultural norms.
Today, photography and 3d animation portray a world nearly no different than the conscious “reality” perceived by our human eyes. Nevertheless, the digital natives baptized in the internet era have drastically different viewing habits than previous generations. The former group is accustomed to digital space and interactive game scenes, almost living the virtual world as reality; however, the latter only perceive virtual spaces as an alternative or extension to the physical world in specific contexts. Most artists participating in “Borderless Shelter” belong to the young generation. Always immersing themselves in innovative media and interfaces, the artists are ready to bombard their audiences with vivid and unique imaginations.
Today, photography and 3d animation portray a world nearly no different than the conscious “reality” perceived by our human eyes. Nevertheless, the digital natives baptized in the internet era have drastically different viewing habits than previous generations. The former group is accustomed to digital space and interactive game scenes, almost living the virtual world as reality; however, the latter only perceive virtual spaces as an alternative or extension to the physical world in specific contexts. Most artists participating in “Borderless Shelter” belong to the young generation. Always immersing themselves in innovative media and interfaces, the artists are ready to bombard their audiences with vivid and unique imaginations.
在網際網路被發明時，人類出現了從現實空間走向線上的第一次大遷徙，扭轉了對「世界」的想像。20多年來，在這個浩瀚的虛擬世界中，隨著搜尋引擎和物聯網的發展，當代社會的所有事物儼然已與網路共生共存。而數位藝術家們也受惠於這座巨大系統，從網路爬蟲、到機器學習與人工智慧等應用在創作當中，雲端裡的網路社群文化、虛擬、賽博等議題，形成一個時代的樣貌。
而2020年以後的人類，被疫情驅趕，形成新的一波網路大遷徙。電商營收、虛擬貨幣、線上遊戲等正在享受疫情下的淘金熱。同時，所有藝術生產不得不轉向網路，無界的網路成為人類最大的庇護所，在這裡，不僅實現藝術家的各種想像，也挑戰既有的文化活動樣貌。
透過攝影到電腦3D軟體所呈現的世界，一步一步逼近平常人類所認知的「真實」，然而出生在網際網路時代的數位原住民們，與前幾個世代的網路移民相比，兩者之間有相當不同觀看習慣，前者與電腦軟體建造的空間、遊戲場景十分親近，甚至幾乎等同可以像在物理世界裡生活一樣活在虛擬的世界中與他人互動；而後者則會將數位世界視為物理世界的延伸或特定情境下的替代方案。本次參與「無邊庇護所」的藝術家大多是年輕世代，隨時悠遊於各種新媒體介面之間的他們，為大眾展現網路世代的藝術創作能量。
「無邊庇護所」的作品除了電玩介面、即時互動、錄像裝置等形式外，在內容與議題上也能看見藝術家思考科技如何拓展了社會各個面向的交流和不同群體之間彼此觸及的密度；虛擬替身讓人人可選擇需要的外型或其他條件，而疫情之下的防疫規則也消弭社會階級的優先順序，在很多場域裡評斷一個人的優先順序不再以經濟條件為先。不論在物理世界中的少數、多數、優勢或弱勢的群體，在無邊庇護所裡，所有人都是流動的，可依照不同的標籤集結、歸類，並展現創意與生產力。
