THERE IS A GORILLA ON MARS Hugo Brazão

2015

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Our relationship with objects and images has changed dramatically with the

arrival of digital means of production. There is a sense of ubiquity and

democratisation of information that makes us engage with the space in a

completely different way. Contrary to what happens in the material world, in the

digital reality there is nothing between the viewer and what he sees, except for

the relationship created with the image. We are following a kind of interactive and

abstract territory where, through windows, images of the concrete territory are

given. This will build our path in frames, videos and in small fragmented

situations.

Hito Steyerl (2009) in her essay In Defence of the Poor Image (2009) 1

described these as a substandard kind of image, which are “squeezed through

slow digital connections,” transforming quality into accessibility and, because of

the processes these images are involved in while they are uploaded,

downloaded, shared or reformatted, they tend towards abstraction; “it is a visual

idea in its very becoming.”.

The reader and the spectator become users. Artie Vierkant (2010, pp. 3) 2 sees

this as a result of the contemporary moment, “inherently informed by ubiquitous

authorship, the development of attention as currency, the collapse of physical

space in networked culture, and the infinite reproducibility and mutability of digital

materials.”.                                                                                                                1  Steyerl, H. (2009) In Defense of the Poor Image. Available at: http://www.e-flux.com/journal/in-defense-of-the-poor-image/ (Accessed: 14 January 2015). 2  Vierkant, A. (2010) The Object Image Post-Internet. Available t: http://www.artlurker.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/03/image-object-postInternet.pdf (Downloaded: 14 January 2015).  

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1.PAREIDOLIA & HOAXES: FICTION AND REALITY IN NEW MEDIA

Bedding for sale on Ebay looks like a smiley face (2014)3

Side Eying Chloe in Truck form (2014)4

August Strindberg in his book Inferno (1913) 5 describes how the rumpled

cushion where he slept his mid-day siesta looked like a marble head carved in

the style of Michelangelo.

Whilst he admired a drawing of a Madonna in a friend’s studio, he asked

“Where have you got that from? ... A Madonna, isn’t it?” “Yes, a Madonna of

Versailles, copied from the floating plants in a Swiss lake!”;

Similarly, when the burning coals in his fireplace were nearly extinguished, he

took a mass of coal “of fantastic shape that resembles a cock’s head with a

splendid comb joined to what looks like a human trunk with twisted limbs (…), a

                                                                                                               3    Unknown Photographer (2014) Bedding for sale on Ebay looks like a smiley face. (Spotted and downloaded on: 15 April 2014). 4   Unknown Photographer (2014) Side Eyeing Chloe in Truck Form. Available at: http://knowyourmeme.com/photos/694254-side-eyeing-chloe (Accessed: 14 January 2015). 5  Strindberg, A. (1913) Inferno. London : The Knickerbocker Press. Available at: http://www.gutenberg.org/files/44108/44108-h/44108-h.htm (Accessed : 14 January 2015 )  

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fine group of two gnomes or drunken dwarfs who embrace each other while their

clothes flutter in the wind, (…)[or even] a Madonna and Child in the Byzantine

style, of incomparable beauty of outline”. He then places the figures in his

windowsill, which seems to frighten away the sparrows, who generally take their

crumbs from there. “The sparrows are frightened and remain aloof. There is then

some likeness in the figures, which they can distinguish, and some reality in this

conjunction of dead material and fire.”

The human eye is naturally inclined to anthropomorphize. We assemble

disconnected patches of light and dark and unconsciously recognise faces or

figures in rocks, trees, clouds and damp stains on walls6. The phenomenon of

pareidolia, where a random stimulus is perceived as significant, is not an

uncommon thing in popular culture. Whether it be an image of the Virgin Mary

found in a cheese toastie, the shroud of Turin or images of UFO’s, Loch Ness

monsters, Yetis or big cats in the English countryside, people seem to be

obsessed with this notion of recognising the remarkable in photographs; with

using their pareidolic eye.

In Hitchcock’s Rear Window (1954)7 the main character, due to an accident, is

trapped inside his house. The privileged view he has over the beautifully

displayed windows of his neighbours gradually leads to him becoming obsessed

with observing them. When using his camera’s long lens he becomes witness to

                                                                                                               6  Michell, J.F.. (1979) Natural Likeness : Faces and Figures in Nature. London : E P Dutton. 7  Rear Window (1954) Directed by Alfred Hitchcock [Film]. United States: Paramount Pictures.  

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a crime.

In new digital media there is a similar approach to images, where the

relationship that one has with those around them is much like that experienced

by Hitchcock’s protagonist. A voyeuristic eagle eye develops and becomes

fascinated by the possibility that one has easy and safe access to this type of

content. This is accentuated by the opportunity one has to zoom in and out of

any data at a whim.

For many generations people have looked into the moon and recognised distinct

patterns. World myths and folklore highlight many differing images: a woman

weaving, stands of laurel trees, an elephant jumping off a cliff, a girl with a basket

on her back, a rabbit, a four-eyed jaguar and, the most common, the Man in the

Moon. These pattern recognitions, made with the naked eye, contrast with what

we see through a telescope. Using a telescope these features are revealed as

whole landscapes, formed by ancient cratered highlands.8 The visual experience

with digital images is in opposition to the clarifying lens of a telescope. When

zooming into these images, instead of deciphering a scenario, as was the case

for Hitchcock’s character’s long lens or as the telescope does with the night sky,

what is seen is a pixelated, abstract ensemble of tones, colours and shades.

This characteristic is very similar to that which we see in painting. When

stepping closer to a painting we can often only see the marks of its making and

very little more than these random impressions. As we step back, our eyes can

frame what is happening.                                                                                                                8   Sagan, C. (1997) The Demon-Haunted World : Science as a Candle in the Dark . Reprint edition (1995). New York : Ballantine Books.  

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Image taken by Nasa’s ‘Spirit’ rover (2010)9 and edited crop where can be seen the ‘Gorilla on Mars’10;

In 2010 an image spotted by NASA’s Spirit rover on Mars went viral. The image

revealed a gorilla shaped rock that was found in a small detail of a picture that

the space agency shared. Using 3d technology and through combining a variety

of other images taken in the same area by the rover, experts managed to take

the exact measurements and spot what was no more than an irregular shaped,

otherwise very ordinary rock, with little resemblance to a gorilla. However, due to

the poor quality of the widely shared detail of this image, a huge online

community became obsessed with the notion that a gorilla was in fact living on

Mars.

                                                                                                               9    National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA). (Mars : 2010). Available at: http://mars.nasa.gov/mer/gallery/all/2/n/087/2N134093032EFF2300P1846L0M1.JPG (Accessed/downloaded: 14 January 2015). 10  Unknown (2010) Image showing the real dimension of the gorilla rock. Available at: http://www.universetoday.com/58927/gorilla-on-mars/ (Accessed/downloaded: 14 January 2015).  

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Every year numerous hoaxes are spread over the Internet11. In 2014 a similar

case surfaced with ‘Crabzilla’12. A satellite image showed what looked like an

impossibly oversized crab living off the shore of Kent. In another occasion a

photo of an enormously sized squid that washed ashore the coast of California13.

When images are shared online they are being placed in a fully packed, user

generated means of information, where images can easily lose the visual

characteristics that identify their source. This is of course evidenced by the use of

                                                                                                               11  They are also mentioned in sensationalist newspapers as The Daily Mail, or The Sun, but they’re online presence is pioneer.    

12   Winter, Q. (2014) Crabzilla. Available at: http://weirdwhitstable.blogspot.co.uk/ (Accessed/downloaded: 14 January 2015).  

13   Unknown (2014) Giant Squid Fukushima Hoax. Available at: http://img.scoop.it/RlWwhr70DbPkAwEH2BSoQDl72eJkfbmt4t8yenImKBVvK0kTmF0xjctABnaLJIm9 (Accessed/downloaded: 14 January 2015).  

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‘contemporary modes of image production’ (e.g. Photoshop).

In Michelangelo Antonioni’s film Blow Up (1974) 14, a man was taking pictures of

a random couple that was in the park where he was wandering. The woman gets

furious for being photographed. This intrigues the photographer who goes to his

studio and finds out that he unwittingly photographed a crime. The many

enlargements of the black and white film that he displays around his studio are

grainy but seem to show a body in the grass and a killer lurking in the trees with

a gun.

Many images that spread over the Internet, such as those shared on social

media, very often report the extremely ordinary and the easily recognisable. The

image produced can still be deciphered because of given context or additional

written information.

However, when “quality (is transformed) into accessibility” 15 and the

characteristics of these images are seriously damaged, their information is

distorted. This is more notable in the background of these pictures where certain

elements lose their principal characteristics and, due to the distance from the

camera, are now transformed in an ambiguous, almost abstract, anomalous

representation of its original form.

The approach of singling out and magnifying certain aspects of an image, similar

to that approach adopted by Antonioni’s character, can give these images a

                                                                                                               14    Blow Up (1974) Directed by Michelangelo Antonioni [Film]. London: MGM Premier Productions. 15    Steyerl, H. (2009) In Defense of the Poor Image. Available at: http://www.e-flux.com/journal/in-defense-of-the-poor-image/ (Accessed: 14 January 2015).  

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purpose in their own right. They are now separated from their original object, to

the point where only a suggestion of their prior selves is evident.

Although the act of augmenting a numeric representation of a two-dimensional

image and the method used by the protagonist in the film are similar they can

also be disparate. In the film, this act leads to the recognition of a gun and a

body, but on the other hand, it could be the case that the shape can not be easily

identified as any object.

In any of the cases, when doing this, another image is created. The object

resembles neither its original form (that which was sat in front of the

photographer) nor that which was represented in the un-cropped photograph. A

third reality is created, the objects forged copy. Although it originates from the

same source, a whole new entity is created. Its symbolic meaning is altered and

it now sits in a space between the actual and the fictional, much like the gorilla on

Mars.

Hyperreality is the incapability to separate the real from the simulation. It is

where the real and the fictional merge to a point where it is unclear when is the

turning point between one and the other. The term “hyperreality” was first coined

by Jean Baudrillard in his work Simulacra and Simulation (1981)16 where he

points out that hyperreality besides being a territory between the real and the

virtual it also implicates the construction of a sign or a set of signifiers, which

symbolizes something that does not actually exist, like Santa Claus.                                                                                                                16  Baudrillard, J. (1981) Simulacra and Simulation. Available at: http://www.bconradwilliams.com/files/7313/9690/1991/Baudrillard-Jean-Simulacra-And-Simulation2.pdf (Downloaded: 14 January 2015).  

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A single photograph no longer necessarily represents the truth. Nicola Mirzoeff

starts his text “What is Visual Culture” (1999) 17 by saying, “Seeing is a great deal

more than believing these days. You can buy a photograph of your house taken

from an orbiting satellite or have your internal organs magnetically imaged. If that

special moment didn’t come out quite right in you photography, you can digitally

manipulate it on your computer.” In a world saturated with a never-ending

dissemination and recycling of images, there comes the moment when it might

seem impossible to define what is purely image and what is reality, because, in

fact, they have become one and only one. How can we be sure whether an

image is if in fact a truthful and genuine glimpse of ‘reality’, or whether we merely

perceive it to be so? Baudrillard suggests that the world we live in has been

replaced by a copy world, in which all that we seek for is simulated.

August Strindberg displayed his burned curiously shaped coals in the window to

keep the sparrows away; these objects in themselves hold little significance.

These unremarkable coals, however, took on the very importance of the form

that that he had bestowed upon them and testament to this is the fact that the

birds did not come back to his window. The reality of the figures and the

hyperreality that they come to symbolise are inseparably interlinked.

The phenomenon of pareidolia, by creating a new reality, highlights perfectly the

growing ‘hyperreal’ relationship that we develop with images.

The act of presenting fiction as fact can help us to reflect on this condition we

are part of. We have always had the authority to create new realities and present                                                                                                                17  Mirzoeff, N. (1998) The Visual Culture Reader. Available at: http://analepsis.files.wordpress.com/2011/08/104915217-mirzoeff-nicholas-ed-the-visual-culture-reader.pdf (Downloaded: 14 January 2015).  

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them as the truth, as we see it put into use in all fictional pieces of work, from

theatre to books, movies and beyond. However, I see an important turning point

on this matter in the modern world. Everyone has an equal opportunity and

what’s more is encouraged by society to create a quasi-fictional life on the

Internet. We do this through creating personas, microcosms or eccentric,

extraordinary, ironic or humorous lives for ourselves. By exploring these

narratives, their reliability, or conversely unreliability, and how they relate to our

contemporary identities we might create new stories that will help us in the

understanding of all these ambiguities between the visual, the virtual, the

physical, the real and the fictional.

2. BOOK AND PDF : PHYSICAL AND VIRTUAL

Being alive in a culture of images and still having to exist in the midst of things

makes this relationship with objects very complex (Mark Leckey, 2014)18. When

you can have an e-book, why would one still buy a “real” book? Rather than

focusing on the “e-book” or the “real” book, I prefer to focus on the book that has

been accidently included in a picture and broadcasted through digital media and

is now reduced to visual data that is accessible by all. It might not exist anymore

as a real book and it might as well vanish as a digital document.

These objects are in many ways lost objects which have separated themselves

from the subject and become quasi-independent beings, establishing a “alien,

Fremde ... strange and even hostile (...)” nature. (Jacques Lacan, 1959-1960, pp.

                                                                                                               18  Leckey, M. (2014) ‘Mark Leckey’, Artreview, Summer 2014;

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52)19

As described by Ken Hillis (2012, pp.89)20, digital culture is a “virtual presence in

the form of a digital sign of an object or person situated elsewhere, it is a

powerful means for making sense of the postmodern commodity-body. (...) It is a

fight between material and virtual, spatial and textual, symbolic and indexical and

archaic and post-human.”

This idea of an object that lives in the border of virtual and “real”, where the

distinction between one and the other begins to blur, is coming to a point where it

starts to have cultural legitimacy.

Artie Vierkant in his essay The Image Object Post-Internet (2010)21 raises some

issues that are very relevant in the discussion of this relation between objects, art

objects, art and artists in a Post-Media culture.

He discusses the way we find ourselves in radically different times after a period

where art and art education has been tied by a overwhelming volume of

language within and around art production, where can we place ourselves within

this new context?

The lack of representational fixity “nothing is in a fixed state,” can be part of the

solution in understanding both our relationship to physical objects that have been

                                                                                                               19  Lacan, J. (1986) The ethics of psychoanalysis (1959-1960). Edited by Miller,J. London: Routledge. Book VII. 20  Hillis, K. (2009) Online a Lot of Time : Ritual, Fetish, Sign (1995). Durham : Duke University Press  21  Vierkant, A. (2010) The Object Image Post-Internet. Available at: http://www.artlurker.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/03/image-object-postInternet.pdf (Downloaded: 14 January 2015).  

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processed through digital media and in the understanding of art after the Internet.

Vierkant sees this lack of representational fixity as something that has to be

developed further “(by) taking an object to be represented (to be more direct,

presented) as another type of object entirely, without reference to the “original.”

For objects after the Internet there can be no ‘original copy.’ (…) Even if an

image or object is able to be traced back to a source, the substance (substance

in the sense of both its materiality and its importance) of the source object can no

longer be regarded as inherently greater than any of its copies.”

Many artists considered the Internet to be the new era of museum. It was

thought that art could finally circulate freely, every one would at last have the

opportunity to share, create and curate in what it appeared to be the dawning of

a new, more democratic age of art. In essence, everyone could have his or her

own little, changeable, portable, personalized museum. To a certain degree this

was true, but this initial excitement soon vanished. The experience of consuming

art digitally is far detached from that which we experience in the physical world.

The computer has its own aesthetics, adorning everything within it’s own frames.

The experience of walking through a real space is in deep contrast to what is

experienced within the confines of a computer screen. This is not to say that the

digital landscape does not offer us opportunity, but we must appreciate that its

versatility is limited.

The Post-Internet22 term represents a group of artists who in the mid-2000’s

started developing the idea of the Internet as “less a novelty and more a                                                                                                                22   “Post-Internet Art” is a term coined by artist Marisa Olson and developed further by writer Gene McHugh in the critical blog “Post Internet” during its activity between December 2009 and September 2010.  

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banality”23 or as Guthrie Lonergan described as “Internet Aware (…) when the

photo of the art object is more widely dispersed [&] viewed than the [art] object

itself.” In this context, the prefix “post” should be understood not as “the

successor to,” but “the crisis of” or an “extension of”.24

Discussions around the term “Post-Internet” have begun to surface. Some

believe that too much concern is given to the Internet and that other aspects of

art are being left behind. I believe that the reason some have shown reluctance

to the term “Post Internet” is for it being a neologism. I argue that the

development of this term is a perfectly natural response to the developments in

media that have taken place over the last 20 years. It comes at a crisis time for

image, perception, body, language, communication, shape, object, ethics and

time; all of these and other aspects that are paramount preoccupations in the

making of art. The Internet is both a reason and an ‘excuse’ to talk about these

subjects. It should be thought of as the maxim for the contemporary relationship

that we have with the world, rather than an art movement.

The work by the Berlin based artist, Oliver Laric, is a good example of how these

relationships can be created using the Internet as a medium to raise questions

about other matters. His research moves around the complex relationship

between the Internet and the expanded field of visual culture. He reflects on how

original and copy, thing and thought, event and document, are collapsed in a

                                                                                                               23  McHugh, G. (2011), Post Internet: Notes on Internet and Art. Link Editions. Available at: http://www.linkartcenter.eu/public/editions/Gene_McHugh_Post_Internet_Link_Editions_2011.pdf (Downloaded: 14 January 2015)      24 Marisa Olson, ‘Postinternet’, Foam Magazine, Issue 29, 16 November 2012, pp. 59–63.

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flattened information space where everything is click away from everything else.

He does so by investigating the effects of circulation of information over the field

of creation. “It is an on-going reflection on the open-ended nature of images in an

era when any image can be copied, retouched and recirculated (…) In (his) work

Laric demonstrates how images and objects are continually modified to represent

something new, from Roman copies of Greek sculptures, to adjusted and

augmented images, remixes and gifs.” 25 It reflects how screens increasingly

mediate the real world, where knowledge is replaced by Google search and

Wikipedia culture.

The iconic images that Laric collects from contemporary popular culture and

mythology are testament to the consideration he holds for their importance and

influence. “A value no longer determined by any uniqueness or truth in the

images themselves, but by the collective and often anonymous dynamics that,

through distribution, transform them into icons.” 26 With this work he succeeds in

using the Internet as an instrument to mirror concerns of the postmodern

condition.

In his 2014 exhibition, Modern Family27, Ed Fornieles staged a family BBQ in the

L.A. suburbs. The exhibition presents a “‘Pinterest reality’ derived from the

aspirational online image-sharing platform, which, along with home decor

magazines, has come to present a contemporary definition of the American ‘good                                                                                                                25  JONES,  Caitlin  (2013)  –  Conceptual  Blind  spots  –  Mousse  Magazine,  Issue  38,  April-­‐May  2013,  pag.  72-­‐89    26  Mousse Magazine (2015) Oliver Laric at ar/ge kunst, Bolzano. Available at: http://moussemagazine.it/oliver-laric-ar-ge-kunst/ (Accessed: 14 January 2015). 27  Modern Family (2014) [Exhibition]. Chisenhale Gallery. 19/09-09/11/2014.  

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life’. The installation plays with scale and spatial perspective to create a

cartoonish landscape of sculptures, combining high-spec finishes and new

technology with breakfast cereal, DIY home tiling techniques and a ‘living room

materiality’.”28 The exhibition is an attempt to reproduce the experience of the

Internet within the confines of a gallery. When showing a “dystopic banality and

pleasure (for the) excess” through images, objects and sounds, he creates an

almost satirical narrative that builds a connection between the virtual and the

real. In many ways this link demonstrates the cultural influence that these

mediums have.

Several efforts have been made to build the bridge between physical and virtual.

The first, and potentially more obvious, way of doing this is by printing. Kenneth

Goldsmith in his project Printing Out the Internet (2013)29 asked people across

the globe to print an image from their web browser and then send the result to a

gallery in Mexico City. He was interested in representing the Internet as a

material entity by reframing it in very tangible terms. By printing online content,

which for one reason or another we feel emotionally attached to (a photograph or

an email), we settle the ephemeral characteristics of these images. What is

problematic about this is that, by simply printing out the Internet, there is a shift

                                                                                                               28  Chisenhale Gallery (2014) Ed Forniels : Modern Family. Available at: http://www.chisenhale.org.uk/archive/exhibitions/index.php?id=141 (Accessed: 14 January 2015).  29  Printing out the Internet (2013) [Exhibition]. LABOR : Galeria de Arte contemporaneo de Mexico. 26/07-26/08/2013.  

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purely from one medium to another.30 The same is the case with 3D digital

printing, where a certain amount of information is simply translated through a

printing device. Despite often being a perfect replica, the problem with printing in

art practice, is that it can quite ironically leave a lot of information behind. Its

ambiguities, contrasts and depth are flattened in an incomplete mirror image. The

translation from digital data to physical objects must take in account that their

characteristics are dissimilar and need to be interpreted, rephrased and adjusted

between these two realities.

To revisit my initial question, why would someone prefer having a book rather

than having a PDF version on their computer? Is it the weight it has? The shape?

Is it a fetish for this antiquated idea of knowledge? Could it be the smell? Does

this document read in the same way when you have 27 sheets of paper stapled

together before you in your hands, as when you have a PDF, which you have to

scroll down with your finger?

The whole performative act, the way in which we interact with the piece, is

different. The difference is as stark as the feeling of watching live music

compared to listening to a record at home. It is as differentiated as

communicating with your family via Skype versus visiting them in person at

home. There is an emotional attachment that we build with physical objects and

physical interactions, which is built and domesticated by our memory,31 and that

cannot be overtaken by a virtual presence.

                                                                                                               30    There is a pejorative term in German for people who can't understand online content without printing it: Internetausdrucker  31  Schwenger, P. (2006) The tears of things: melancholy and physical objects. London : Minnesota Press.

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3. ARCHAEOLOGY & FORENSICS: A TRAP, A GAME, A BATTLE

“[…] Every now and then archaeologists digging in the Sahara, or in some cave

that was once on the sea shore, find a fragment of animal remains. By close

examination they discover that it is a bit of the tooth of a creature that lived in the

Upper Palaeolithic age, some hitherto unknown species of Man.

This Fragment passes into the hands of other experts, who try to reconstruct the

whole animal, man or object (as the case may be) on the basis of structural

measurements and analysis of the material and so on (…)

Let us set our imaginations to the task of reconstructing an imaginary object,

basing our work on fragments of unknown function and uncertain origin.

Whatever emerges from this, we will not know exactly what it is, or what world it

belongs to. (…)””32

As I have mentioned previously, these tools in this new era of media come with

novel modes of image production and are now less of a novelty. In many ways

they are settled and have joined harmoniously into many people’s normal life.

However, huge amounts of people don’t have access to these technologies33 and

some choose not to use them at all. Despite this, artists can find it difficult to

move away from talking about perception, image and object in the present day,

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                           32 Munari, B. (1966), Design as Art. London : Penguin books. Available at: http://designopendata.files.wordpress.com/2014/05/munari-1966-design-as-art.pdf (Downloaded: 14 January 2015) 33 THE GLOBAL DIGITAL DIVIDE - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Digital_divide

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without referencing the Internet. Putting aside any definitions or prejudices:

“every artist working today is a postinternet artist”, 34 as whether they approve or

not, they live in a world that exists after the dawn of, and arguably now the

saturation of, the Internet.

Hito Steyerl, in her essay Too Much World: Is the Internet Dead? (2013)35,

suggests that the Internet has slowly started moving offline. “Data, sounds, and

images are now routinely transitioning beyond screens into a different state of

matter. They surpass the boundaries of data channels and manifest materially.“

She provides the artificially created islands36 that “mimic genetically modified

plants” as an example. They symbolise a post Google Maps, satellite-view, and

                                                                                                               34 Darling, J. (2014) Post Whatever: on Ethics, Historicity & the #usermilitia. Available at: http://rhizome.org/editorial/2014/dec/16/post-whatever-ethics-historicity-usermilitia/?ref=ftsidebar (Accessed: 14 January 2015).  35  Steyerl, H. (2013) Too Much World : Is the Internet dead?. Available at: http://www.e-flux.com/journal/too-much-world-is-the-internet-dead/ (Accessed: 14 January 2015).  

36    Google Earth. (2014) Palm Islands and The World Islands. Available at: https://www.google.co.uk/maps/place/Palm+Islands+-+Emiratos+%C3%81rabes+Unidos/@25.1309319,55.087312,38571m/data=!3m1!1e3!4m2!3m1!1s0x3e5f14d60045b819:0xd9b8653e942019a9 (Accessed: 14 January 2015).    

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map-like way of thinking about the world. They are an offline example of how the

Internet and digital means of production are settling in “real world” terrain. Steyerl

goes on to say that, even if we shut down the entire Internet, it would persist

offline as a mode of life, surveillance, production and organization. A high lack of

transparency combined with a form of intense voyeurism.

Another example of this, given by Laura Mclean in her paper Contingent

Movements Archive (2013) 37 , is Wikileak’s Julian Assange, who’s online

presence is huge, but during his political asylum at the Ecuadorian Embassy in

London, he was confined to a tiny physical space for over a year. She then

quotes Bruce Sterling, who describes this as a ‘wrestling match of virtuality and

actuality, an irruption of the physical into the digital’.

The Internet promotes itself as a “virtual” reality that drops the barriers of the

materiality of information and, for the most part, purports to be a democratic and

easily accessible tool. However, the Internet as an entity still relies heavily on the

physical, material world for it to function. Computers, mobile phones and tablets

are real physical objects. They can be destroyed with ease at the drop of a

hammer; they would not survive if thrown out of the window, nor if dipped in a

puddle. They are, however, commercially valuable, fetishised objects that the

privileged have money to purchase and have largely easy access to. Even aside

from the object itself, the network also depends on a physical infrastructure.

Mobile data, in relative terms, is expensive and you still need to be in a location

where you have sufficient signal. Having access to the Internet at home involves                                                                                                                37  McLean, L. (2013) Contigent Movement Archive. Available at: http://www.contingentmovementsarchive.com/content/lauramclean.html (Accessed: 14 January 2015).  

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bureaucracy and having peculiar white, electronic objects plugged in to the wall

of your living room.

The pre-requisites to attaining an online presence are often not taken into

consideration and there is always an attempt to mask these evidences. Julian

Oliver (2014) 38offers an example of this; the mobile phone pylons (cell towers)

disguised as trees that are often seen by roadsides39. Alike the Internet, these

huge signal-emitting objects require much physical space and sound

infrastructure to work effectively. Just as we try to disguise and ignore the pylons

that line our streets by masquerading them as foliage, we also forget and take for

granted the physical necessities required to live in a connected world. In many

cases, the study of new technologies seeks to deny or neglect the existence of

physical territories.

“The fact that this swirling, absorbing and ever expanding online experience is

hidden behind an object as dull and mute as a smartphone is one of the great                                                                                                                38  Oliver, J. (2014) Stealth Infrastructure. Available at: http://rhizome.org/editorial/2014/may/20/stealth-infrastructure/ (Accessed: 14 January 2015).

39    Oliver, J. (Year?) Cell tower disguised as tree. Marrakesh, Marroco. Available at: http://rhizome.org/editorial/2014/may/20/stealth-infrastructure/ (Accessed/downloaded: 14 January 2015).  

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contradictions of our age. The experience of stepping through the screen and

exploring all the internet has to offer might be an all-encompassing one, but the

physical interaction is very limited – the click of a mouse or caress of a

touchscreen. There’s a growing disconnect between the hardware, and the

experience that it facilitates.” 40

I believe it is important to reflect on the importance that ‘slow’, more

contemplative, means of production have. What is the significance of

craftsmanship or authenticity now that a single random person, with digital

photography, can produce on average a lot more images than ever before? What

is, after all, the importance of what is left behind in the material world in a Post-

Internet culture? I believe that the production of objects that can be placed in a

real space (e.g. paintings or sculptures) can help us to understand this duality of

timing needed to produce a visual completion of an idea. It can allow us to reflect

on our need to materially fulfil our mental images (those within one’s mind’s eye),

as well as contemplate about the importance of a material’s territorial existence

in rooting ourselves as individuals.

Vierkant suggests that we can’t act as a didactic ethnographer that simply

collects material for its sake.41 The approach that should be taken is more of an

archaeologist or a forensic examiner, by presenting and examining specific

examples that will lead to us creating representational strategies, which have not                                                                                                                40  Postmatter (2014) Rachel de Joode. Available at: http://postmatter.com/currents/rachel-de-joode/#/ (Accessed: 14 January 2015).  41  Vierkant, A. (2010) The Object Image Post-Internet. Available at: http://www.artlurker.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/03/image-object-postInternet.pdf (Downloaded: 14 January 2015).  

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been entirely cultivated. With these different representational strategies, one can

play with the wide range of falsehoods, mistakes, disruptions, errors or

misunderstandings; anomalies of the dark side of the Internet (Parikka, 2009)

42that are left behind involuntarily.

The physical characteristics of the objects previously described as being in the

background, such as size, surface, solidity or texture, can often not be calculated

or deciphered due to the lack of surrounding information, special perspective or

clarity of the image itself. A picture shows a teddy bear leaned against a wall of

an under lit room in some part of the world. The possibilities around this easily

identified object are infinite: we do not know what material it is made of, how far it

is from the camera (and as so how big it is), if it is in fact in someone’s room or

what other space he is inserted in, if it smells like tangerines or if it has a twin

yellow brother that, despite having the same size as him, weighs double. Despite

that, the most probable case is that he is nothing more than an ordinary teddy

bear; some images open a wider variety of possibilities as they can not be

identified as a single object. Therefore, they can be considered anthropomorphic

sea creatures or robot shaped trinkets, or simply as matter that shaped itself into

an interesting form. We can imagine the stimulus that we observe to be an

object, a person or an animal, living somewhere between the real and the

fictional. These images become raw material that can be reshaped into new fixed

states and after existing as data, which has been widely dispersed across the                                                                                                                42  Parikka, J. (2010) The Spam Book : On Porn, Viruses and Other Anomalies from the Dark Side of Digital Culture Available at: 42  Parikka, J. (2010) The Spam Book : On Porn, Viruses and Other Anomalies from the Dark Side of Digital Culture Available at: https://www.academia.edu/208154/The_Spam_Book_On_Porn_Viruses_and_Other_Anomalies_from_the_Dark_Side_of_Digital_Culture (Downloaded: 14 January 2015).  

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globe, they become tangible again and can exist together in a physical space.

The re-creation of these objects from images, which have been augmented by

digital dissemination and are now trying to be understood in a real space, will

make us spend time with them or learn a technique in order to recreate them. By

waiving the use of new media technologies and by sacrificing the need for a

faultless result, we can relinquish control and come to appreciate a new

significance. I am interested in how these objects can suggest an action or a

function, as if they were on a stage where a performance could well happen. A

trap, a game, a battle.

A forensic examination of all its elements that can create the bridge between

digital and material, exploring the potential of their relationship and how they can

help in the ultimate understanding within our contemporary context; a precocious

digital archaeology. How they can recall memories, utopian scenarios, failures,

sounds or circumstances?

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Schwenger, P. (2006) The tears of things: melancholy and physical objects. London : Minnesota Press. Steyerl, H. (2009) In Defense of the Poor Image. Available at: http://www.e-flux.com/journal/in-defense-of-the-poor-image/ (Accessed: 14 January 2015). Strindberg, A. (1913) Inferno. London : The Knickerbocker Press. Available at: http://www.gutenberg.org/files/44108/44108-h/44108-h.htm (Accessed : 14 January 2015 ) Taylor, H. M. (2007) More that a Hoax : William Karel’s critical Mchumentary, Available at: http://www.freepatentsonline.com/article/Post-Script/172169166.html (Accessed : 14 January 2015 ) Vierkant, A. (2010) The Object Image Post-Internet. Available at: http://www.artlurker.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/03/image-object-postInternet.pdf (Downloaded: 14 January 2015). FILMS    Blow Up (1974) Directed by Michelangelo Antonioni [Film]. London: MGM Premier Productions.  Rear Window (1954) Directed by Alfred Hitchcock [Film]. United States: Paramount Pictures.    EXHIBITIONS   Brand Innovations for Ubiquitous Autorship (2013) [Exhibition]. Carroll / Fletcher. 23/04-11/05/2013.      Modern Family (2014) [Exhibition]. Chisenhale Gallery. 19/09-09/11/2014.    Printing out the Internet (2013) [Exhibition]. LABOR : Galeria de Arte contemporaneo de Mexico. 26/07-26/08/2013.