離線瀏覽展覽簡介
Introduction of Taiwan International Video Art Exhibition 2018 – Offline Browser

(For English, please scroll down.)

網絡社會中的資訊流通，繼承了資本主義的高速及彈性，不論智慧手機、電視、電腦均整合在以網際網路作為運作平台的顯示媒介，並藉著創新的科技物整合了資訊內容、瀏覽的物質性介面。在這樣的狀態下，影像的生產到觀看過程所經歷的多重技術聚合，亦受為數龐大的仲介者與參與者的相互影響，進一步孕育出了動態的整體秩序。而網絡化技術的擴散，就好像類神經網絡一般，實質地改變了我們對經驗、權力、歷史與文化生產過程中的操作和結果，徹底動搖了以固定空間、時間、地方、國家為基礎的組織概念及形式，其所顯現的導向是以「流動」的權力為第一優先，這不僅加速著資本主義的演化並改變了資本市場之性質，同時也以極快的速度在更新自身，而生產出了即時運作的全球化活動。網絡社會的開放式結構有著跨越時空向度的延展性質，因此「用戶」無論由哪個方向接近，都會是開放端，只要能夠在網絡中流通並消費著相同的溝通符碼，就能整合入新的節點，開拓未知的網絡，而用戶在網際網路協定裡的真實身份，其實是一串由數位代號所定義出來的「位址」，因此用戶未必是人，它也可以是一台機器。網絡化讓網際網路中用戶的訊息生產、使用與意義建構產生了質變，關鍵不單是文本敘事如何生成，反而是在了雲端資料庫與訊息文本的複雜關係中。這樣的轉換過程，正是本屆錄像雙年展所關注的影像特徵，它在雲端資料庫與敘事之間的競合關係裡，產生了百科全書式的影像文本；顯現在真實－虛擬的影像交界中，用戶對生活經驗的再編碼與認識；以及在由雲端、機器、用戶群所建構的網絡社會中，如何進一步應用經驗和知識，以延伸在人類社會不同網絡間的動態關係。在這架構下，影像中的物質承載不再扮演傳統錄像藝術脈絡中的工具性角色，它是反思網絡社會的跳板，也是「離線瀏覽」中藝術家創作與行動的一環。

「離線瀏覽」並非著眼在網際網路於上線(on-line)與離線(off-line)的功能性詮釋，更非二元論式的要我們決定離開或留下，它所試圖探討的是，當我們在使用由網際網路所搭建起的平台時，如何在我們身兼生產者/使用者/消費者的用戶身份下，思考個體生產與網絡的結構關係，並將網絡社會中的技術工具觀轉換成一種媒介觀，以資訊的逆向生產來滲透數據進而影響演算的物質性基礎。這當中的關鍵是，網絡化技術並非單向地由社會所決定，更多是藉由其中用戶的參與所形構成的網絡世界觀，而如何瞭解這股技術的力量，不被這力量所挾持，正是本次離線瀏覽所思考的策略。

The information flow within a network society inherits the speed and elasticity of capitalism. Be it smartphone, TV, or computer, all are integrated onto the showcase medium that takes the Internet as the operation platform, while innovative technological entities integrate the information content and material interface of browsing. Under such circumstances, the convergence of multiple technologies along the processes from producing to watching images is being influenced by the numerous mediators and participants and vice versa, which further gives birth to the dynamic order as a whole. Yet, the spread of network technology shares similarities of that of an artificial neural network, substantially changing our manipulation of experience, power, history and the process of cultural production as well as the outcomes. The organizational concepts and forms based on fixed space, time, place, and state are utterly shattered, whereas the orientation it displays takes the “flowing” power as the first priority, which not only accelerates the evolution of capitalism and changes the nature of capital market, but also renews itself at a swift speed, producing a real-time global action.

The open structure of a network society possesses an attribute of extending beyond space and time. Hence, a “User”, disregard the direction he/she approaches from, is an open terminal, whatsoever. As long as the same communication codes are flowing and consumed on the Internet, they could be integrated into the new nodes, exploring the unknown network. In the meantime, the real identity of a User in the Internet Protocol is an “address” defined by a series of digital codes. Therefore, a User is not necessary a human being. It can be a machine as well. Networking brings about the qualitative changes to the production, utilization, and meaning construction of messages by the Users on the Internet. The key not only lies in how a text narrative is produced, but in the complicated relationship between the cloud database and message texts. Such process of conversion is the very image attribute the video art biennial this year aims to focus. It produces encyclopedia-like image texts among the co-opetition in between cloud database and narratives. What it manifests on the real-virtual image border is Users’ re-coding and understanding of life experiences as well as how to derive the dynamic relationships among the various networks in the human society with experience and knowledge in the network society consists of cloud, machines, and user groups. Under this framework, the material payload within images no longer plays the instrumental role in the conventional video art context. Instead, it is a springboard that reflects upon the network society as well as one of the segments of the artists’ creation and actions in “Offline Browser”.

“Offline Browser” stresses not the functional interpretation of online and offline on the Internet, nor does it pose us a binary question whether to leave or to stay. What It attempts to discuss, however, is that when we are using the platform constructed by the Internet, how we should contemplate the structural relationship between individual production and network under the user identity as producer/user/consumer, and convert the perspective of technical tool in the network society into a perspective of medium, infiltrating data via the reverse production of information and eventually affecting the material basis of algorithm. The key underneath is that networking technology is not unilaterally determined by the society, but more by the network worldview fabricated by the participations of users within. Thus, how to comprehend and not be held by the power of this technology is the very strategy Offline Browser deliberates.

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