Et Cetera 2018

“… I forget that if what you see is where you go, then all seeing is a censored prophet that fails (because of neurosis or paralysis) to act in accordance with its own oracles.

I forget the efficient linearity of human reading (frustrating; rusty with the will to make sense) and learn the stochastic programmability of the machine (nested recursions: birds in cyborg-synaptic teleport.) I become not apart from the humus of inhuman refuse, the floppy callousness of computer script.

I forget how to chart a course between the gravity of identity (flesh, father, hearth) and the anonymity of the digital.

I forget, rote fig, frig toe. I forget — ego rift — grief to forge it. Heal us, eros of foe grit. O He Fears Soul: I forget sentimentality and open-hearted relatability to forge a new, colder, but no less tender form of subjectivity.

I forget whether Zhuangzi thought voice was the dream of water or water the dream of voice. I barely remember vaporwave — soft subliminality that brought back visions of Sonic the Hedgehog — and the hard limits of nostalgia. I fully remember Freud’s primordial oceanic feeling of being one with the universe; but to feel it here, in the 21st century, means to feel it homelessly: even total unity cannot undo my nomad code.

I forget language like it was the lie of noise…”

— Fan Wu  “I Forget, etc. (after X.Y.)”

Et Cetera is woven together with five works that are essentially five bodies of writings as digital poetry — a poetic practice that is made possible by digital media and technology in which aesthetic possibilities are extended through the semantic impact of alphabets, visuals, data, etc. Interlaced by multimedial meaning-making, Et Cetera re(produces) installations that are engineered with utilizing real-time data feeds, animated letterforms, performative instructions and sensory synthesis.

Exploring different scenarios of human-machine coupling that consequently lead to multifarious illegibility, Et Cetera amplifies the noise of information overflow in the concurrent mediascape with its rhizomatic networks that are largely beyond our conscious apprehension. On the B-side, Et Cetera is also involved with writing about the alphabetic writing apparatus, the role of artist as author as human-machine-centaur and the networked subjectivity.

Related writing: Et Cetera by Xuan Ye