Po-Hao Chi
Plantfluencer Gazing
About the Item
‘The network’ has become a defining concept of our epoch. - Wendy Chun
How to build up a symbiotic relationship with evolving entities constituted of information patterns? Is decentralization can only be an illusion in terms of existing infrastructure?
In this project, the artist dove deep into the fields of the Internet and gathered the most popular hashtags of instagrammable plants through algorithms to explore connectivity and collectivity. With WebVR and sonification programs, Po-Hao Chi created a multichannel installation that links physical and virtual entities, public and private spaces, digital and analogous experiences.
The COVID-19 pandemic has made people more eager to build up the ideal home life when social interactions are constrained, but is there a normalized common for such a spectacle beyond the limits of time and space? Particular species from predominantly and variously subtropical origin, for instance, Ｍonstera Deliciosa, have become symbols of certain kinds of lifestyle. They can stay invisible within contemporary indoor environments while being eye-catching on social media around the world. It parallels the fact that connectivity is an exotic term and represents homophily with digitality.
We simultaneously see others and ourselves when scrolling down newsfeeds on pervasive screens, which creates an enviable imaginary network that emphasizes the concept of "similarity breeds connection." There are no accidents and slips of the tongue in the world of big data. Every action is symptomatic, and every effort reveals a larger allegedly unconscious pattern. In a flattened ontology established through the gaze of algorithms, Chi hope to develop disclosures of how humans, nonhumans, and technical devices co-constituted each other.
About the Artist
Po-Hao Chi is an interdisciplinary practitioner who works at the fusion of art, music, and technology. His practice usually stems from the fascination with boundaries and guidelines to associate diversities in everyday life. His recent research is about agencies and collaborative capacities between humans and artifacts with the evolving connectivity. Chi graduated from the Art, Culture, and Technology program at MIT and received his MMus from Goldsmiths, University of London, and a B.A. in Economics from National Taiwan University.
