許峰瑞
HSU Fong-Ray

(For English, please scroll down.)

當前我們所面對的全球文化秩序，是身處於以網絡化(networking)
技術為邏輯所進行社會與經濟再結構的極端資本主義演化過程，並透過全球金融的推動力量表現在網絡社會(network society)。網絡化技術的擴散，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(real time)運作的全球化活動。這樣的技術範型，已不再如資訊時代的前期般以知識和資訊的創新為核心，其更多著眼於如何將知識和資訊應用在生產、溝通處理層面，進一步擴增／化約那介於人類、科技物、環境之間的經驗、知識管理，並延伸在人類社會不同網絡間的動態關係，塑造著社會的支配與變遷。然而，網絡化技術並非單向地由社會所決定，其更多是由技術本身所引發的連鎖效應所形構成的網絡世界觀，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。

＃技術的延伸
網絡社會的資訊流通，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後台的顯示媒介，並藉著創新的科技物整合了資訊內容、瀏覽的物質性介面，在不透明的雲端演算機房裡，以極快的速度持續處理著不同層面的資料，改變著人類的生活型態。我們都曾有過這樣、也正在進行中的生活經驗：使用導航系統開車前往一個未知之地時的迷航；以個人資料的授權換取免費的應用軟體與服務；也見證了真實世界中的戰爭，以虛擬世界遊戲的操作方式快速且立即地破關；實體貨幣成為了一組數字位元，穿梭在看不見的網絡中，瞬間完成巨額資本交易；搜尋紀錄供給了雲端平台的智慧演算、餵養著我們更多的商品訊息…等，這些都是網絡化經由我們所生產的資訊內容及在網絡世界留下的足跡、欲望，所演算出的回饋性資訊層疊與系統預測的自我更新過程。這過程中的資訊技術不僅塑造著人類的生活，同時也為人類的生活型態所塑造。

「科技物－人－環境」之間的溝通方式也在網絡化技術實踐的過程中，擴增／化約了人類的生活經驗，其所強化的內在邏輯是，資訊技術所創造的科技物在人類使用過程中所產生的矛盾，已漸漸從科技物與環境再現的對立關係中，轉往人類透過科技物、又或是科技物透過人類來重新詮釋、定義環境的狀態。意即，我們相信全球導航系統，更勝於我們的身體經驗；如果智慧手機的時間是12:00，但我們的機械手錶卻走到11:59，那必定是機械手錶的發條鬆了；降雨機率所指涉的廣泛性區域，使我們連出去吃個午餐都會帶把雨傘以防萬一。當前人類的生活經驗、價值生產意義皆以效率為前題，這由後設資料為基礎的組織演算，在透過雲端平台而建構起對世界認識的統一原則下所呈現的是：資訊技術不再是人的延伸，相反地，人成為了資訊技術的延伸。

#網絡社會與後設資料(metadata)
後設資料作為網絡化技術的基礎來源，其所能揭露的事情更勝過於資料本身，假若我們所生產的資料是內容，那麼後設資料就是內容所在的脈絡，又或是索引。換句話說，當我們要監控一個人的時候，簡訊、電子郵件、和對話錄音的內容可能較後設資料為精準，但當你想要監視、控制所有人的時候，鉅量的後設資料就更有意義也更有效率。網絡社會的日常是，我們不用再去搜尋想看的資訊，因為搜尋引擎完整地紀錄了我們留在網際網路(internet)世界中的足跡，只要資料量夠多，時間越長，這些鉅量的後設資料便能透過雲端演算、人工智慧清楚地瞭解處於各個不同網絡中的人類，進而分配、使之限縮在不同的網絡舒適圈裡。即使它現在做得不夠好，但在不遠後的未來它會更好，因為它正是透過我們的使用方式、生產的內容來更新自身的技術。

然而，若單純將問題單一性地聚焦在資本家和國家如何蒐集資料，卻也難窺全貌，真實的狀況是，這些大量的數據如何被技術擁有者所處理、比對和分析，並在技術不斷更新自身的狀態下，「管理」著我們生活的網絡。這種掌控著各種不同網絡被看見、聚合、分隔的決定性技術，往往藉由網絡化的「日常」排除了網際網路作為社會溝通工具的顛覆性力量，其加速著資訊消費、加速人類對環境與物的忽略與遺忘、以及加速著身體的虛擬化，並削減著網絡化系統對生活帶來的壓迫，削減著我們在思考、行動、批判層面的反動能力。網絡社會日復一日的運作結構裡，網絡化的決定性技術不只藉由組織方式、資訊的生產、處理與傳遞來改造生產與權力的來源，同時在網際網路作為平台載體破除了空間的地方性、撕裂時間的序列而延伸至永恆的特性下，開啟了個人於網絡社會中政治參與的形式與權力。人類藉由網絡中各種訊息的生產來進行流動，藉由流動來確立自身的存在，這意義的建構不只建立在個人／集體的象徵性認同上，同時也再現並強化了網絡化技術對於真實社會的統馭能力，並以極快的更新速度消費著個體的生產，使主體破碎化、中心離散化，斷裂在網絡化的支配中。

由此便不難理解當前社會所衍生出的各種民粹、保守主義其實並非是個意外，它們並非單純來自主體在真實社會政治參與上的挫折，更多是因為新自由主義的市場邏輯強化了網絡化技術的管理，並在摧毀了市民社會的組織方式後，使強大的社會衝突墜入了網絡化技術的控管，迴盪在不平衡的社會流動狀態與無限延長的時空中，這過程所強化的並不是階級鬥爭，而是各個利益團體的需求以及社會參與者對不公平之結果所產生的反感和對抗。網絡社會的參與者在此都將輕易地被網絡化技術所塑造、分割、區隔成特定意識形態、種族，它以虛擬的形式化民主殺死真實的公共人、又或是將被排除的個體流放到網絡社會的無盡日常中。個體對網絡的反抗力量伴隨了焦慮，摻雜在真實的虛擬化與虛擬的真實化介面，這股需要以延長自我去抵抗無盡時間的力量，也很可能會受與其共時而生的民粹、保守主義的影響，漸漸成為一種侷限性的文化抵抗，而限縮在特定社群、網絡。這當中藉由議題所開展出的美學思辨、文化批判也很可能輕易地淪為爭論的場域，而非文化再生產的場域，使網絡社會中的個體無所適從，而總體所邁向的並非更全面的自由，但也亦非歷史的終結，相反地，一切才正要開始。

＃真實－虛擬交界的超文本(hypertext)
網絡化建構了當代的社會型態，在網絡空間中，沒有任何地方、任何人是自在自存的，所有的人事物皆化為節點(node)與核心(hub)構成了包覆著人類生活的網絡，顛覆了現實中的地理、身份、資源等條件，它能令現實生活中最不可能的邊陲變成中心的節點，也能讓原本的中心因為對技術的忽略而被放逐。面對空間與時間的物質基礎已然轉化的網絡社會，其特徵環繞著去地方化的空間與延長至永恆的時間而組織起來，當中的支配性價值與利益導向無需參考過去或未來，而是以全球化經濟的流動概念為其信仰，破除一切限制以創造更有效率的資本利潤。而因為網絡化所開展出的無時間、無地方特性使得關於歷史、符號的意義在這懸浮狀態裡失去了方向，在雲端空間、演算機制接收了資料的管理後，各種不同網路時空的訊息(不論是文字、圖像、影像或聲音等)組織在一起成為了網狀的超文本，它使得各自單一的訊息元素得以交叉連結、引用，這也讓網際網路中的訊息生產、使用與建構產生了質變，關鍵不單是文本敘事如何生成，反而更多的比重落在了雲端資料庫與訊息文本的複雜關係裡。這些訊息也在網絡社會中，藉由快速流動的過程重新拆解、聚合了網絡社會的認同機制。這使得網絡化技術在獲得了權力分配的同時，亦令資本邏輯得以逃離時間掌控，進而將社會去連續性、歷史去時間化，使真實的社會關係變成空殼，至此，網絡社會既真實亦虛擬的文化實際地反應了在數位金融交易、彈性工作型態、個體生命週期的模糊化等面向上。

網絡化在系統性地混合了各種時態後，社會中那介於真實－虛擬間的轉化能力，使得訊息解讀、編碼更實質地成為了認識「科技物－人－環境」關係的首要命題。這意即真實社會中所無力改變的情況，在虛擬化的網絡社會裡都可能延伸成為另一種真實的抵抗與認同，真實社會所發生的事件進入虛擬的網絡社會裡重新塑造了其符號的象徵性，在企圖自網絡社會得到群眾的力量並返回真實社會進行抵抗的過程裡，超文本扮演了網絡化技術中的資訊節點。此一同時，超文本也很可能淹沒在此鉅量的資訊垃圾中，即使這股顛覆性的力量也確實「曾經」、「偶然地」藉由這樣的技術改變了真實社會的政治參與。現今網絡化的操作層面左右在擁有大量數據、監控能力的資本家、國家手中，但我們別忘了，網絡化的技術與自我更新，一方面塑造著我們的生活，同時也為我們的生活型態所塑造，這中間的關係是迴圈式的層疊與演算。即便網絡化技術使我們產生過著相同生活的幻覺，但事實上彼此卻毫無關聯，可是另一方面，資訊的迴圈式再現與市場導向的演算機制，總會在不經意之間露出馬腳，在我們透過對資訊的瀏覽過程、心智離線於網絡的一剎那獲得超越的可能。

＃離線瀏覽
由於網絡建構的開放式社會結構能夠無限地擴展，因此，無論你由哪個方向接近，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。2018台灣國際錄像藝術展「離線瀏覽」藉由：「日常的抵抗」、「超文本生產」、「真實－虛擬的技術轉換」、「數據的反向滲透」為範疇來思考網絡化社會中的影像生產與流動關係，這些不同的範疇受網絡化技術影響所產生的觀念與內容是相互纏繞共生共息的，在面對持續更新的極端化資本主義邏輯中如何透過影像文化來進行思考、對抗與行動，則是本次展覽關心的目標。

在「日常的抵抗」所劃出的範疇中有著網絡社會中極度失衡的符號特徵，它突顯在面對極端資本主義消費的加速系統、網絡化技術的自我更新下影像生產的物質性反動及文化抵抗，那透過對於網絡化的思考行動與實踐顯現在生活現象、議題重構、與符號生產過程在Semiconductor、高倩彤、Gilles Ribero、Vincent Pouydesseau、Susanna Flock等的影像觀中獲得了詮釋；網絡社會中的位置和意義是由流動、交換的過程所界定，在這超時空狀破碎的序列中所生產出的各種跨越文化、地理、歷史向度的超文本，其表現若非瞬時的、就是失去序列的狀態，它改變了人類溝通的書寫、口語、視聽模態的特性，也重構了影像敘事的方式，而何子彥、EunHee Lee、MAKIS KYRIAKOPOULOS、Valentino Russo等的作品，使超時空中不同節點的觀看獲得了詮釋之外的思考；「真實－虛擬的技術轉換」場域裡的轉化承接了超文本得以逃離時空並壓縮成為一個微小隨機的剎那，在使用者抗拒網絡社會的資訊化同時，真實及身體亦完全沉浸在虛擬的場景、偽裝的世界裡，這當中的文化象徵不只是隱喻，還包括了真實的經驗，從Harun Farocki、Lawrence Lek、鄭源、Paul Wiersbinski、Andrew Luk＆Alexis Mailles＆Peter Nelson、梁超的創作中即反映了對於技術轉換的批判與嘲諷，在化約與被排除的裂隙創造出得以辨識個體的網絡節點與定位；網絡社會中所生產的資料就如同資訊時代排放的廢氣，這鉅量的後設資料透過人工智慧、雲端演算，將輕易地使這些鉅量廢氣轉換為掌握此技術之帝國的基礎建設，其支配的是所有人類，「數據的反向滲透」正是在此脈絡下的逆向生產及對資訊層疊的思考，這類型作品就如同Hito Steyerl、Joseph Wilcox、Nestor Siré and Julia Weis、鄭先喻、陳呈毓等創作對於數據、技術的反動與滲透。

「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／消費者三位一體所強化的網絡化技術中，重新審視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，其所指涉的是主體在面對資訊技術、最新型態資本主義的價值觀與認同的形式；「瀏覽」在網絡社會的文化生產過程中經常性地扮演了資本主義的加速與極大效益化推手，在這行為中，我們透過藉由科技物的使用與訊息的消費開啟了對於網絡社會的再現與詮釋關係，在其反覆大量的疊加下擴增／化約了我們對於真實世界的經驗，我們到達、經驗了我們無法到達的地理邊界、書寫著消失時間序列的歷史、適應著真實的虛擬化與虛擬的真實化，這過程所忽略由「人－科技物－環境」所形成的經驗與管理，正是由我們的行動所構成。在資訊的生產與使用間，網絡社會中的文化亦因技術所形塑，但同時，所有的參與者也擁有著塑造著技術的能動性，如何使用這股力量，而不被這股力量所挾持，也正是當代影像文化所思考的策略：離線瀏覽。

The global cultural order we face today is a process of extreme capitalism evolution restructured socially and economically based on the logic of networking technology, expressed in network society via the driving force of global finance.

The spreading of networking technology substantially changes our manipulation toward the production processes of experience, power, history, and culture as well as the yielded results, shattering the very organizational concept and form based on fixed space, time, location, and state. The orientation it manifests takes the “flowing” power as priority. It not only accelerates the evolution of capitalism, but changes the nature of capital market. Meanwhile, it renews itself at a swift speed, producing global activities operating in real-time. Such technology paradigm, different from the early period of Information Age with the innovation of knowledge and information at its core, focuses more on how to apply knowledge and information on the production and communication levels. It expands/reduces further the experiences and knowledge management amidst the Mankind, technological objects, and the environment, and extends the dynamic relationships of various networks in human society, shaping the domination and evolution of the society. Nevertheless, networking technology is not determined unilaterally by the society, but more by the network worldview fabricated by the chain reaction triggered by the technology itself. Thus, how to comprehend and not be held by the power of this technology is the very strategy this Offline Browser deliberates.

#Extension of Technology
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 display medium that takes the Internet as the backend operation platform, while innovative technological objects integrate the information content and material interface of browsing. In the opaque cloud-computing room, data of various levels are being processed rapidly, changing the life forms of humanity. We all have had or having this kind of life experience: feeling at loss in driving to an unknown territory following the instructions of navigation system; exchanging our personal information for free applications and services; witnessing the wars in the real world being cracked swiftly and instantly through the maneuver in a virtual world game; full-bodied money becoming a series of digits, traversing in the invisible network to complete huge amounts of transactions in no time; search results feeding the intelligent computation of cloud platforms while feeding us more commodity information, etc. These are not only the cascading of feedback information computed by networking via the information content we produce as well as the footprints and desires we leave in the network world, but also the self-renewal process of the system. The information technology in the process is shaping the lives of humans, while being shaped by the forms of human living as well.

The communication among “technological objects-man-environment” is expanding/reducing the life experience of the human race in the practice of networking technology. The inner logic it enhances is that the technological objects created by information technology, amidst the paradoxes produced in the utilization of man, has been migrating from the opposite relationship between technological object and environmental representation to the reinterpretation and redefinition of environment’s status by humans via technological objects or the other way around. That is, we believe in GPS navigation system more than our bodily experience; if the time on smartphone is 12:00 whereas the time on our mechanical watch is 11:50, it must be the mechanical watch that has some issue with the clockwork; and that the probability of precipitation referring to a region in general makes us to take an umbrella even just for a dining out for lunch just in case. The precondition for human life experience and the meaning of value production today is efficiency. What the organizational computation based on metadata under the unified principle in the world knowledge constructed by cloud platforms presents is that information technology is no longer the extension of humanity; instead, humanity becomes the extension of information technology.

#network society and metadata
What the metadata, as the basic source of networking technology, exposes is more than that by the data itself. If the data we produce is the content, the metadata is the context or index where the content is situated. In other words, if we want to monitor one individual, the contents of SMS messages, emails, and audio recordings of conversation may be more precise than the metadata. Nevertheless, when you want to monitor and control every individual, colossal metadata will be more meaningful and more efficient. The routine in a network society is that we no longer want to search for the information we desire because the search engine records completely our footprints in the Internet world. With enough data, the longer the duration is, the better these colossal metadata can understand humans in different networks through cloud-computing and artificial intelligence, so as to allocate and confine the latter in various comfort zones. Even if it is not doing well enough at the moment, it shall do better in the near future for it is renewing its own technology with our means of utilization and contents we are producing.

That being said, if we singularly focus on how capitalists and states collect data, it may not yield a complete picture, nevertheless. The truth is how these massive data are processed, compared and analyzed by the owner of technology, which “manages” the networks in our lives as the technology constantly renews itself. Such decisive technology that controls the diverse networks that are seen, converged, and separated often rules out the subversive power of the Internet as a social communication tool via the “routine” of networking. It accelerates information consumption, expedites the ignorance and forgetting of the environment and objects by man, and speeds up the virtualization of body, while cutting down the oppression brought by the networking system onto life as well as our capability to react on the levels of thinking, acting, and criticizing. In the day-to-day operational structure of network society, the decisive technology of networking not just alternates production and power source via organizational approach as well as the production, processing, and communication of information, but serves as a platform on the Internet to shatter the locality of space and rupture the sequence of time. It extends to beneath the attribute, and opens up individual’s form and power of political participation in network society. Mankind engages in flowing via the production of various messages on the network, and establishes his own existence through flowing. This construction of meaning not just is grounded on the symbolic identity of individual/group, but also is represented and enhances networking technology’s control over the real society, while consuming individual’s production swiftly to fragment the subject and to disperse the center, shattering in the dominance of networking.

Hence, it is not too difficult to comprehend that all sorts of populism and conservatism seen in the society today are not an accident at all. They did not simply come from the setbacks of subjects in the political participation in real society, but more from the result of the market logic of neoliberalism strengthening the management of networking technology. After destroying the organization of civil society, they plunge the powerful social conflicts into the hands of networking technology, reverberating in the fluid status of society and the ever-extending space-time. What the process enhances is not class struggle, but the needs from every interest group as well as the antipathy and resistance of the participants in society arising from unjust results. The participants in network society herein can easily be shaped, divided, and separated by networking technology to certain ideologies or races. Shrouded in virtual formal democracy, it kills the true public persons, or exiles the excluded individuals to the endless routines of network society. The resistance of individuals to network comes with anxiety, mixed in the realized virtualization and virtualized realization interface. This force that has to extend itself to fight against the never-ending time can possibly be influenced by the populism and conservatism it was born with synchronically, and gradually becomes a limited cultural resistance, confined in specific community and network. Meanwhile, the aesthetic speculation and cultural criticism initiated by issues can also become the arena for disputes easily, instead of the venue for cultural reproduction. The individuals in network society are thus at loss, and the horizon they march as a whole to is not a more complete liberty, nor is it the end of history, however, but the beginning of everything.

#Hypertext at the Reality-Virtuality Border
Networking constructs the form of the contemporary society. In the network space, no place and no one can be self-sustaining. All the people, things, and objects are transformed into nodes and hubs, and weave out the network that cocoons the lives of human beings, overthrowing the conditions in reality like geography, identity, and resource. It can turn the most impossible peripheral in reality into the node at center, and can exile the original center due to its neglect of technology. In the face of a network society where the material foundations of space and time have been transformed, the traits surrounding the delocalized space and perpetually extended time are organized. The dominating value and interest-orientation within need not to refer to the past nor the future, but take the flowing concept of globalized economy as its faith, eradicating all limits in order to create a more efficient return on capital. The non-temporal, non-local attribute initiated by networking forces the meanings of history and symbol lose their orientation amidst this status of suspension. After the cloud space and computing mechanism take over the management of data, messages across different Internet space-time (whether it is text, image, video or audio) are put together as a web-like hypertext. It allows individual message element to connect with and cite each other, while making the production, utilization and construction of messages on the Internet go through a qualitative change. The key not only lies in how a text narrative is produced, but more in the complicated relationship between the cloud database and message texts. These messages in the network society disintegrate and converge once again the identifying mechanism of network society in a rapid-flowing process. While it allows networking technology to gain the power to distribute, it also makes the capital logic inescapable from time, so as to remove the continuity in society and the temporality in history, hollowing the substantive social relationship. Thus, the real and virtual culture of network society is physically reflected on aspects such as the digital financial transactions, the flexible working patterns, and the blurring of individual’s life cycle.

After networking systematically mixed all kinds of tenses, the ability to transform in between reality and virtuality in the society shall make the interpretation and coding of messages substantially become the primary proposition to recognize the “technological object-man-environment” relationship. That is, the situation unable to be changed in the real society may be extended to another real resistance and identity in the virtualized network society. The events happening in the real society enter the virtual network society and reshape their symbolic representations. In the process of attempting to gain the power of the public from the network society and to return to the real society to fight, hypertext serves as the information node in the networking technology. In the meantime, hypertext is very likely to be drowned in the colossal information wastes, even though this subversive power did “once” and “sporadically” change the political participation in the real society via such technology. The operational level of networking today is at the mercy of the capitalists and states that possess a huge amount of data and capability to monitor. Yet, we shall not forget that while the technology and self-renewal of networking is shaping our lives, they are also being shaped by our forms of life. The relationship therein is a cascading and computing of never-ending loop. Even if the networking technology bestows us an illusion that we are living the same life, the truth is right the opposite with no connection to each other whatsoever. Nonetheless, on the hand, the looping representation of information and the computing mechanism of market-orientation will give themselves away every now and then carelessly, so we may gain the possibility of transcendence on the instant when the mind is off line from the Internet during the browsing process of information.

#Offline Browser
Now that the open social structure constructed by network can be expanded indefinitely, it will always be an open terminal disregard the direction you approaches from. 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. The 2018 Taiwan International Video Art – Offline Browser contemplates the relationship between the production and flowing of images in the networking society via the domains of “Resistance to Routine”, “Production of Hypertext”, “Real-Virtual Technological Conversion”, and “Counter-Infiltration of Data”. The ideas and contents produced by the various domains due to the influence of networking technology are intertwined and symbiotic. How to contemplate, resist, and act via image culture in the face of extreme capitalist logic that keeps renews itself is the very goal this exhibition concerns about.

In the domain defined by “Resistance to Routine” is equipped with the symbolic feature extremely out of balance in the network society, which reveals the material opposition and cultural resistance of image production in the face of the acceleration system of extreme capitalist consumption and under the self-renewal f networking technology. The contemplating actions and practices regarding networking manifested in life phenomenon, issue construction and symbol production process are interpreted in the image perspectives of Semiconductor, Ko Sin Tung, Gilles Ribero, Vincent Pouydesseau, and Susanna Flock. The position as well as the meaning in the network society is defined by the process of flowing and exchanging. The diverse cross-cultural, cross-geographical, and cross-historical hypertext produced in the hyperspace, fragmented sequence, the behavior is in the status of sequence lost if not instantaneous. It changes the characteristics of writing, speaking, and audiovisual model of human communication, reconstructing the means of image narrative. As to the artworks of HO Tzu Nyen, Eun-Hee Lee, Makis Kyriakopoulos, and Valentino Russo, they see from the various nodes in the hyperspace to acquire thinking beyond interpretation. The transformation in the realm of “Real-Virtual Technological Conversion” continues the hypertext so as to escape from the space-time, compressed into a minute, random instant. As the User resists the informationization of network society, the authenticity as well as the body is immersed in the virtual setting and the camouflaged world. The cultural symbol within not just is a metaphor, but includes authentic experience. In the artworks of Harun Farocki, Lawrence Lek, ZHENG Yuan, Paul Wiersbinski, Andrew Luk & Alexis Mailles & Peter Nelson, and LIANG Chao, criticism and sarcasm toward technological conversion are reflected, creating network nodes and positioning that is able to identify individuals in the cracks of reduction and exclusion. The data produced in the network society is like the exhaust emitted in the Age of Information. The colossal metadata converts at ease this colossal exhaust into the infrastructure of the empire that holds this technology via artificial intelligence and cloud computing. What it dominates is the entire human race. “Counter-Infiltration of Data” is precisely the reverse-production and the contemplation on the information cascading in such context. The artworks of this category such as the ones of Hito Steyerl, Joseph Wilcox, Nestor Siré and Julia Weis, CHENG Hsien-Yu, and CHEN Chen-Yu are the reactions as well as infiltrations into data and technology.

“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 reexamine the structural relationship between individual production and network amidst the networking technology enhanced by the trinity of us as a 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. What it refers is the value and the identifying form when the subject faces information technology and the latest form of capitalism. “Browsing” oftentimes plays the role in the cultural production process of network society that accelerates and maximizes the benefits of capitalism. In such behavior, we unseal the representation and interpretation relationship toward network society via the utilization of technological objects and the consumption of messages. Expanding/reducing our experiences of the real world in the repeated, enormous superimposition, we reach and experience geographical border we could have never reached, write about the history of lost time sequence, and adapting to the realized virtualization as well as virtualized realization. The experience and management formed by “man, technological object, and environment” overlooked in the process are constituted by our actions. In between the production and utilization of information, the culture in the network society is shaped by technology as well. Meanwhile, all the participants also possess the agency to shape the technology. Thus, how to comprehend and not be held by the power is the very strategy the contemporary image culture deliberates: Offline Browser.

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