2022 ARKO Art & Tech Festival 《The Fable Of Net In Earth》 is an exhibition that examines shifts in digital networks and
conditions of art production in a cumulatively accelerating hyper-connected
society, exploring how this drift continues beyond speculative stories to
practices in the real world. Instead of embodying the fantasy of connecting the
virtual world to reality with digital-based technologies such as augmented
reality and interaction, it focuses on how speculative or imaginary stories are
led to knowledge and practices, creating Earth-shaking changes.
《The Fable Of Net In Earth》
metaphorizes a decentralized network system of Web 3.0 by
likening it to the system of fungal clusters, such as mushrooms and molds. It
also addresses the unrevealed entanglement of humanity, nature, and
mythological beings as beings of earth and concentrates on the story of
‘worlding’ that they portray.1)
This story starts with a suggestion to view
the present and future life in a new scope, deviating from the order that the
knowledge system of this era has given. Aiming towards ‘disenchantment of the
world,’ the knowledge system of today alleviates the confusion caused by the
hybridization of humans and non-human beings and separates the realms of the
sacred and the profane, civilization and non-civilization, soul and living.
However, this festival presents a magical world in which all beings of earth are
intertwined through the ‘re-enchantment of the world’ that creates bonds
between the life and knowledge of non-human beings, such as animals, spirits,
and myths, which have been disconnected by anthropocentric, scientific, and
rational conceptions.
《The Fable Of Net In Earth》
supposes the exhibition space of ARKO Art Center and the
online virtual exhibition space as a platform where a storytelling tool that
has stepped out from normality and order is activated through digital creations
to create a new story. In Gallery 1, The Unknown and Wildness allows
the audience to experience multi-layered cosmology in different time zones with
long-standing narratives on the coexistence of mythology, spirits, and wildness
(Clara Jo, Mooni Perry, Morehshin Allahyari, Natasha Tontey, Youngjoo Lee).
In
Gallery 2, Mutant World introduces a speculative
world where a decentralized and distributed network of Web 3.0 is formed in the
digital world (eobchae, Keiken, Song Min Jung, Sunjeong Hwang, Sunpil
Don). The Underground Garden in SpaceFeelux is
where HONF’s work as well as many programs that share the knowledge and
practices of collectives and communities that resemble the energy of earth can
be found.