Relational Art Between Digital Identity and Representation
We have been facing an increasingly prominent artistic process since the 1990s concerning the place of digitalization in our daily lives. We might even say that Richard Hamilton's (1922–2011) 1992 work—which sought answers to the question, "Just what is it that makes today's homes so different?"—further cemented this development in artistic terms by featuring a room with circuit board-scanned wallpaper, emphasizing the advent of the digital age. So, what else can we discuss in art transformed by technology, in lives dictated by algorithms, and in forms reduced to digital indicators?
Exactly 50 years ago, in late 1971, Ray Tomlinson (1941–2016) developed a file transfer protocol that enabled sending electronic mail over a network to a specific user, employing the "@" symbol to define which computer and which user the email would reach. With this, we can begin walking the path opened by digital communication. As we move forward together on this path, we might capture new openings—through concepts like net art, information communication, the mechanical nature of seeing, and productions undergoing metamorphosis in the context of reality—and choose to teleport virtually alongside artworks nourished by this perspective, engaging with the dialectic of art and life as they change and transform over time.
When examining the works within the digital exhibition titled "The 50th Anniversary of Our Digital Identities," we encounter pieces that reference contemporary art’s background of associations—inviting questioning, critique, reflection, and deeper interaction. For instance, we might begin reconsidering sensation and perception by responding to the entanglement of simulation and truth, or the presentation of nonexistent reality as truth. On the other hand, by unpacking themes such as the digital reflections of identity-seeking, the human condition expressing the potential to become puppets of technology, the irreversible impact of humanity on the world in the Anthropocene era, and the socially erosive effects spilling into ecology, we can sense the hidden segments on either side of the path along the boundaries.
— Arda Can Özsu