Current Does Not Mean New: Chronicles of Online Reincarnations taps into terrains of selfhood online, avatars, play-pretend, and the ability to archive and hyper-curate. The ideas pertaining to self- expression are not new, yet their formats continue to evolve, and our iterations keep growing. Through digital practices and mixed media, the exhibition aims to uncover facets of how we operate online and its influence on our AFK (away from keyboard) selves.
The invasive reliance on digital tools in everyday life creates a sense of normalcy. Often, we dismiss the need to trace the exploitative and technocratic tendencies that are reproduced within technological innovation, forgetting their impact on tools for self-expression, which the internet claims to facilitate.
In the latent space of internet hubs, how does self-expression fit within the secrecy, speculative nature, and at times exclusionary state of the internet?
Current Does not Mean New: Chronicles of Online Reincarnations is a 4A LAB Emerging Artist initiative, supported by the City of Sydney Innovations and Ideas grant; a site-specific activation of the 4A LAB, which prioritises research and artworks that are grounded in experimentation, technology, and change.