Paradox of the Future: GATA introduces 00ZHANG
The “metaverse” is a term that has circulated the collective consciousness in recent years, piquing interest in social theorists, video game companies and software developers — with its groundbreaking implications for society. A mysterious place in the digital landscape that has yet to be clearly defined; the concept envisions a stage in human existence, in which we spend large portions of our time in a simulated experience. This relationship between our physical selves and our digital identities continues to evolve, in a process that is only accelerating with the advent of new and innovative technology.
As the next iteration of the internet, it has the possibility to link our day to day experience with that of digital platforms, fusing our experience through the use of augmented and virtual reality. And with graphical processors becoming faster and more powerful each year, alongside our increasing reliance upon social media, it seems inevitable that this is the next form in our social evolution.
00 is a London-based multidisciplinary artist who is using this innovative and constantly evolving space as the nucleus for her own creations. Through the use of performance art, 3D rendering and video games, she is exploring the blurry line between the real and the constructed, between authenticity and fiction.
With her latest project Prototype 0021, 00 has created a video game based on “mixed reality”; a meta game that employs trans media storytelling to deliver its narrative. Touching on cryptic clues that reference ancient occult practices, while splicing them with modern day technology and a hint of existentialism, 00’s work is an enigmatic puzzle that defies understanding. The GATA team managed to get an interview with this illusive and mysterious artist and the discussion seemed to know no limit, with a range of topics and concepts being discussed: from the merits of the Turner prize and video game experiences to dystopian technological advancements.
Welcome to the future.
“When the audience are having an immersive virtual experience, the virtual installation is actually real to them. thus, the virtual interactions become real interactions. ”
Hi, 00! Could you please introduce yourself, how did your artistic journey begin?
Hi, my name is 00, and I’m an artist. Mostly motivated by the investigation of the concept of double-sided exile, my experience of life in *Azeroth triggered my development of both out-practice and theory.
The core of my work is the relationship and the cross overs between virtual and actual registers. I was thinking of these things and about how all things are related, always believing there is another me living in a fantasy world. World of Warcraft is not just a fictional game for me, it’s part of my life; as well as where I come from.
Uncertainty led me to flow through different islands of becoming that employ various forms of creation and destruction coexist simultaneously within the in-between of virtual and the actual.
[At some point in WoW, Azeroth came to mean "The World". And more recently it’s been used as the name of the world soul inside the planet.]
Prototype 0021
“For me, art is one of the most important elements of life, and art is an archaic information processing system.”
Video games seem to be a big influence on your artwork, were they a big part of your life growing up?
Of course! Although game mechanics doesn’t influence me directly, the culture experiences including atheistic histories does. Lots of my friends come from internet, we have known each other for more than ten years and we still talk. In the world without the frame of a physical body—we are all data, creatures without class, genders, cultures, even appearance.
Everything could be found to be beautiful, universality comes from agreement, consensus, a form of representation without end. I am creating an attempt, an approach, a pointing method, an ushering process, an ongoing changing.
@negentropydesign
You are mainly working with renders and 3D animation programs, when was your first encounter with this creative field and what are your favourite aspects of it?
When I’m working with 3D modelling, and I think of these works as truly existing, not just as an animation. For example, my very first virtual installation work, elevator (2020); virtually truly existed in the space. The difference between thinking about art in the virtual realm and using the virtual to make an artwork is severe.
It sounds like a paradox but it’s not. When the audience are having an immersive virtual experience, the virtual installation is actually real to them. thus, the virtual interactions become real interactions.
A Thing Like You and Me written by Hito Steyerl mentioned the immortality of the thing is its finitude, not its eternity. When I apply a single material in a game engine, I find out it can be reproduced, multiplied, and copied. Just as David Bowie’s “hero” is no longer a subject, but an object: a thing, an image, a splendid fetish — a commodity soaked with desire, resurrected from beyond the squalor of its own demise. Bowie’s “hero” has been cloned.
“Everything could be found to be beautiful, universality comes from agreement, consensus, a form of representation without end. I am creating an attempt, an approach, a pointing method, an ushering process, an ongoing changing.”
You have just finished working on your video game project, Prototype0021; could you tell us a little bit more about the origin and concept of this project?
In video games, narrative can be found and communicated through a wide variety of contexts, and this is a primary way of integrating fragments and clues into a storyline.
Conceptual art in relation to the Turner Prize has been popular for 25 years. Martin Creed won the Turner Prize with Work No. 227: The lights going on and off. Any elementary school student can understand that someone turns the light on and off but seeing this scene in the gallery makes people think and helps people form their own ideas.
In 1997, Tracey Emin’ s work Everyone I Have Ever Slept With 1963–1995, The audience felt it was as easy to understand as watching an episode of “EastEnders”.
When John Cage performed 4’33”, he left the work open and said “let it happen.”
Virtual is an adaptation. If the audience knew what they needed, then they wouldn’t be the audience. They would be the artists.
And I want my audience to be artists.
Prototype 0021
Artificial intelligence has continued to evolve in recent years; how do you see this technology affecting our lives in the future?
The human brain has changed little during the last ten thousand years—a mere blink of the eye in geological terms that can hardly be measured. At the other end of the scale is our expanding use of digital technology – it has increasingly become an indication at almost an essentialist level of specific artistic and design tendencies and practices. Scientific revolutions, coups d'etat, corruption, and the post-digital condition all impact the programming of this system.
For me, art is one of the most important elements of life, and art is an archaic information processing system.
In this case, humanity might live as a series of data, transforming it into other forms through algorithmic processes. We will be images generated by processors, interpreting the world in fragments of images, clips and a variety of sensations.
Prototype 0019
If you could dream about a dystopian future, what would the city of your dreams look like?
Everything increasingly emphasises the visual – including text, to the detriment of textuality. The visual is becoming one of the necessary components of recognition. There might be a virtual layer powered by VR or AR technology.
𝐋'𝐎𝐅𝐅𝐈𝐂𝐈𝐄𝐋 𝐕𝐈𝐄𝐓𝐍𝐀𝐌 #𝟖 𝐓𝐇𝐄 𝐀𝐑𝐓 𝐎𝐅 𝐈𝐍𝐃𝐎𝐋𝐄𝐍𝐂𝐄
Films are a huge creative force that inspire us at GATA, are there any films in particular that have been important in your development as an artist?
The relationship between idea, image, and temporality rests on a technological component, built up on an intersubjective network. Film creates aporias of not knowing – through the generation of image, concept, and ideology, they make reality out of representation. My fav director is Chris Marker, he created the paradox of future – the projection in our blind spot; the gap between left and right eyes; the fragmentation that builds up continuously; the memory struggling to complete our life.
Thank you for your time 00!
Edit by SAMO