An Ontology of continuum and decay, 2018
Digital Video, Screen-saver, black and white, 16:9, 15” continuous, silent
It’s increasingly harder to depict who we are in a continuum flow of data. The immediacy of the present is manifested in a stream of data, some times understanding ourselves and our needs faster than we can look ourselves in the mirror.
“The human is placed in this great vortex, where the Self is always a shifting signifier of itself”1
This project investigates the glitches, the malformations and the bias that data collection can produce by questioning the status of the image in hyper reality and its contribution to the processes through which we individually and collectively construct concepts of reality and form personal identity.
By creating a moving image constructed by digital means, Joao aims to create an abstract portrait cross-referencing mythology, pop culture, and gaming to portray the digital ruins of ourselves. This sculpture appears floating in an elliptic movement, endlessly waiting for its decay and ironically expressing its obsolescence through its permanence in opposition to the continuous streams of data flows.
Remiscent of desktop screen-savers, popular in early computer epoch, this extremely short loop of 15” perpetuates itself on our screens, remind us of the exponentially fleeting momentarly present, endlessly in stand-by, recreating a sense of restless anxiety in which we wait for our computers to load.
— Joao Gil, 2019