Surrogate being

Abstract

Surrogate Being is an interactive virtual environment, where I negotiate the discrepancy between memories and digital data of a nostalgic place, my hometown in Korea. Interweaving the heterogeneity of algorithmic digital images and affective memories, this project overcomes the binary opposition of humans and nonhuman and the anthropocentric perspective to investigate technology as a coevolving cognitive being and vital actor in the cognitive network. This project explores our experience and understanding of the world living in the Cognisphere - the globally interconnected cognitive system of humans and machines - and acknowledges nonlinguistic forces and experiential knowledge. Such affective dynamics among planetary cognitive beings are largely unnoticed and overshadowed by seemingly explicit and errorless digital information, and this project opens up interplays between tangible representations on the interface and underlying affects. Surrogate Being bridges the gap between my mind and digital technology and invites participants to navigate the mediated landscape with their curiosity. As memories remain indistinct and disintegrated until we recollect, the landscape is destructed and distorted when no participant is engaged. If a participant is approached the fragmented image and stands in front of it, it turns into a navigable landscape. As s/he moves her/his head to look at the other side of the landscape, the virtual camera in the scene changes its direction responding to the participants' movement - analyzing the image using computer vision. This interaction suggests a potential depth in this digital landscape we can look into, thus the monitor becomes a portal into a mediated digital-memory space. Furthermore, human and technological cognition become indistinguishable in this mediated space, collaboratively generated by affective memories and algorithmic decisions.