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Online exhibition exposes real-world digital emissions
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Dystopia: A tongue-in-cheek reminder of what happens when machines turn their tables on humans. (Courtesy of Salihara) (Courtesy of Salihara/Courtesy of Salihara)
A
n online exhibition held by Jakarta’s avant-garde Komunitas Salihara cultural center examines cyberspace’s intangible imprints on the real world.
The scene shows columns of stones rising from the murky waters of the East River off the New York borough of Brooklyn, the United States. Titled Stack Until It Falls Down, it was part of a video installation by artist Aki Onda, and it evoked coral atolls that dotted the Pacific Ocean or the balanced-stone structures of rock gardens found in his native Japan.
But as its title suggested, “the stacking [of stones] seen in [Stack Until It Falls Down] is perhaps a part of daily life, or even life itself. The work portrayed a repeating cycle that culminated in misfortune,” said curators Bob Edrian and Asikin Hasan of the premise behind the 17-minute video and its refrain of Stack Until It Falls Down -- Then, repeat.
While the act of stacking stones might symbolize the interactions that make up a part of life, they are as likely to be a metaphor for humanity’s dependence on the internet and its frequently unforeseen effects.
Between real-life and cyberspace
Stack Until It Falls Down is one of the works shown in Universal Iteration: Intermissions -- Sparking Public Awareness of the Digital World’s Effects, an online exhibition held by the Komunitas Salihara cultural center in South Jakarta on its website, galeri.salihara.org.
