I recently read the digital art article,A web art exhibit forces visitors to confront the past; If a digital tree falls and no one bothers to search for it, does it still exist? written by Shannon Liao of the Verge. In the article Liao explores the New York Museum exhibition, Art Happens Here: Net Art Anthology. The exhibition explores if web archives can also be digital art as well a displaying artifacts from the web from internet cultures, circumstances, and hidden pockets of the internet. The artists in the show use the old technology as a way to speak on important historical events and censorship. Artists, Miao Ying’s Blind Spot, features a Chinese dictionary with 2,000 terms whited out, words that are censored on Google in China in 2007. Miaos piece also serves as a reflection to the crack down on Chinese twitter users by the Chinese government. Morehshin Allahyari’s The Distributed Monument, Material Speculation: ISIS, depicts real life artifacts from Iraq that were destroyed by ISIS and are remade as 3D-printed models. Only one singular model is displayed and serves as a further commentary of censorship and destruction as well as a commentary on western museums that have artifacts taken during colonialism. Sealed within the model Allahyari has placed a computer chip with all of the files, ready to be printed. I found this article to be really fascinating in the physical art pieces themselves as well as the social commentary they create. The conversation on censorship is an interesting and terrifying concept. Censorship is a growing problem in the digital world as several governments around the world are attempting to control the spread of information and ideas. China and ISIS are both attempting to censor images and ideas in different ways, and it is important to collect this data before it is destroyed. I find that digital art is an effective way to speak on these issues as the digital world seems to be becoming more restricted and controlled.
Article: https://www.theverge.com/2019/4/21/18254786/net-art-anthology-happens-here-new-museum-exhibit-mtaa
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