make gold
The Alchemy of Technology and Practice
The development of modern technology is accompanied by the alienation of the human body, and the "nature" of things is further dissolved and covered. From the understanding and imagination of man-made objects, new nature and transhumanism, artists who focus on technology also reveal their concern for ecology, nature and the universe, their exploration of subjectivity, and their search for the connection between the virtual and the real, and through different dimensions of research and creation, they bring forth different imaginations and narratives of the future. Entering the "potential time Responding to the entanglement of man and nature with his own absurdity
“Guo Cheng: The Park” exhibition site, photo credit: Sifang Contemporary Art Museum
The long reverberation of the struck bronze chime and the random and unreadable combination of letters form the “abstract oracle”, a religious visual image that recently became the entrance to two exhibitions, Guo Cheng’s “Abstract Oracle Generator” is on view at both the Sifang Contemporary Art Museum in Nanjing and the OCAT Shanghai Pavilion. The installation is a prophetic machine based on a physical random number generator, which is activated by striking a bronze chime and generates a combination of letters of varying lengths to form an abbreviated phrase in response to the question posed in the participant’s mind.
The “oracle”, like an internet cipher, may mobilize the audience’s linguistic instincts to try to decipher this randomly generated puzzle. It is similar to a certain state of people under covied-19, trying to find answers in faith, the occult, philosophy, technology, random events and even more confusing online information in a life of extreme amplified uncertainty and alienation. At the same time, as contemporary technology is shifting towards an almost a priori, agentic mode of intelligence, technology may also become a mysterious, absurd presence in the eyes of people.
For artists who use technology as a creative tool, perhaps, as Bernard Stiegler says in La Technique et le Temps, technology “brings to light that which cannot be produced by itself and which has not yet appeared to us. In this conception, technology as an act of production is a “form of de-concealment,” and “modern technology is also a way of removing ills, but it ‘does not present itself in the sense of production. The de-concealment that governs modern technology is an initiation, which prompts nature to release the energy that can be extracted and accumulated’.
Guo Cheng, An Appropriately Reinvented Past, 2017, Image credit: The artist and Four Directions Contemporary Art Museum
In his work, the artist often captures technological objects that sink into the substratum of humanity, focusing on the sculpting of the earth by technology as human activity, but also stripping away unrelated markers to create a map that resembles a human recalibration of itself. In the artist’s 2017 project “A Properly Reinvented Past” in the Netherlands, he first addressed the concept of the “super-object” through the ubiquitous “microplastics”. “I removed the construction debris, microplastics, and other man-made objects from a reclaimed man-made land, bringing the land to a state where ‘artificial traces are removed by artificial means’.”
Reflection Statement
Before the class, I learned about the “learning theory” of learning as a peer group and providing information in the paragogy process. The experience of many group members teaches you how to use the handbook. It takes more time to read what your peers have to say in a Basho group, and it is more efficient to cover a wider range of knowledge because you are getting the experience of others directly.
The theme we talked about in Basho is that green water and green mountains are not as good as gold and silver mountains, which is the wealth given to us by cherishing environmental resources. This concept is very similar to our make gold. Because alchemy is a technology that hides our ills, the de-barrier that governs modern technology is an inspiring thought that prompts nature to release energy that can be extracted and built up
You make the point here, it seems, that green is the new gold. Some of what you write here needs to be evidenced with peer reviewed research. For example, it’s not true that “Visible greenery is expanding, with the world’s largest area of planted forests preserved” is it? The opposite is happening (deforestation). The point, nevertheless, is worth pursuing in more detail since it taps into one of the aims of this workshop, which is to encourage your Basho to debate what constitutes “value”. Do you think this is what happened?
I think the connection between the two is a kind of resource extraction, all from the gift of nature, all from nothing to something.It’s true that deforestation is happening, and it’s a vision that the world’s planted forest area is being preserved, which I think I’m not expressing clearly
As a response, this is interesting. It’s more a riff on what the workshop led you to think about, and it’s a rich seam to keep digging in. What you miss, in terms of Reflective Analysis, is examining the learning mechanics of each workshop in order to address the Problem Scenario for Sprint 1. To do that, you’d also have to engage with some of the scholarship on P2P learning in the Learning Modules for Week 1 and 2. Go back and try to do this (do it in Week 5 👍)
In Yinan Lu’s Make a gold, I clearly saw her understanding of our group’s “green water and green mountains are golden mountains and silver mountains”, and agreed with her own extension: protecting the ecological environment is to protect the natural value and value-added natural capital, and is to protect the potential and strength of economic and social development. This made me reflect on the idea of our group once again, and made me understand this proposition from the perspective of practical significance.