Diaries. Monuments. Memory. Documentation. Event. Pandemic. Archive. Digital identity. Encoding. Decoding. Commemoration. Deja-vu. Always-already. Burying shame. Treehole. Winter counts. (2020)
Memories from the two pandemics compressed, the past and the present felt together via viewing the perpetuated timeless platform of the virtual environment in the physical present.
In Diaries. Monuments. Memory. Documentation. Event. Pandemic. Archive. Digital identity. Encoding. Decoding. Commemoration. Deja-vu. Always-already. Burying shame. Treehole. Winter counts., I revisited old online diaries written from the time during school closure after the 2003 SARS-CoV-1 outbreak in Hong Kong, which were rediscovered again through the ‘Wayback Machine’ while going through lockdown after the 2020 SARS-CoV-2 pandemic.
A selection of 14 entries – reflecting the mandatory period of isolation, is carefully decoded into morse code scripts and burnt onto full goat skins. These goat skins are displayed in timber skeletons of tombstones, translated from a section in St Augustine’s graveyard. I am interested in exploring how the methods of documentation and recording ranged and evolved in histories and cultures, from monumental engravings, winter counts to digital diaries, social media accounts and the Internet Archive.
Playing with expressions in denotations and connotations, a series of 14 instagram posts on the artist’s reflection on the 2020 new normal were published daily from 1 to 14 October, as the virtual aspect parallel to the physical representation. Showcased in parallel to the site-specific, sculptural representation, the content of these 14 posts were converted and presented as an immersive sonic morse code track that is synthesised and shaped over the course of 2 hour and 9 minutes.
Image by Simon Mills.