The installation consists of a piece of digital animation presented on an LED panel and a digital print on wallpaper. Both the printed image and the computer-animated video depict the “vigilant” avatar used in other works—a cybernetic character who inhabits virtual space, whose body is covered with eyes and ears, and who continually watches and listens to us through digital technologies. If through the digital body of this character the artist addressed unbridled online surveillance, in BUGs, the unexpected failures and errors of digital machines are alluded to by the virtual body of a beetle, according to the synonymy of the work’s title. The excesses of machines and of human and insect bodies contrast with the aseptic aspect of the digital interface and the online existence. Behind the apparent cleanliness, however, there is the anxious and frightening nature of the mixing between human and inhuman through technology.
Awards
- 22nd Biennial | Memory is an editing stationWexner Center for the Arts Cinema/Video residency prize