Art

As one of the major cultural institution in human society, museum plays a unique role in reflecting and shaping our collective culture tendency. This summer, three major museums in New York City almost simultaneously curated exhibitions based on one common theme: the influence of digital technology. This coincidence may symbolizes the tipping point of our collective needs to reflecting this societal shift.

While “Talk to Me” in MOMA provides a more optimistic, holistic view to see our relationship with technology, “Otherworldly: Optical Delusions and Small Realities” in Museum of and Arts and Design and “Pro Tools” in Whitney Museum of American Art might see technology in a more critique way. After seeing how “Otherworldly” underlines our longing for “real” in digital flood, I think it would be interesting to recall a theme in “Pro Tools”: everlasting frustration.

“Pro Tools” is a collection exhibition of Cory Arcangel, a famous hacker-turned-digital artist. He is extremely mastered in mixing different media–static and animated, high-tech and DIY–to create thought-provoking artwork in a humorous, awkward, ironic way.

In the exhibit, the centerpiece artwork is Various Self Playing Bowling Games(2011), a large-scale projection of six bowling video games from 1970s to 2000s. While it may represent how digital revolution improves the visual quality from 2D to 3D, it creates a dramatized theme to address the constant frustration which we have experienced: the character in the bowling game keeps guttering the ball, no matter how hard they try. Standing in front of the screen for five minutes, watching the balls keep rolling into the gutter, I really have an impulse to find out the game controller and correct this pathetic scene. But there is nothing I can do, because the game software is hacked by Cory Arcangel to show you the frustration comes with our inability to control technology.

Technology promises us a better life, but it’s exactly our fascination with technology leads us to the destiny of everlasting frustration. When I walked close to another project Masters(2011), a interactive golf game allowing audience to play with a golf club, I saw a lady joyfully tried to toe the ball into the hole. Without noticing the description of this project, a hacked game keeps twisting your swing, she failed again and again. Her facial expression showed a perfect transition from excitement, confusion, frustration, finally to desperation. Like us, she is just one of the victim falling from the Eden of technology.