Land / Sea / Signal

We live in a time of continuous flux, where our interactions online connect to political and economic flows, digital places, the acceleration of time and instantaneous communications. The internet, a ubiquitous presence in the contemporary condition that makes up our day-to-day, forms part of our relationships, conditioning our human experiences and perceptions. It is a space governed by algorithms, managed by protocols and demands our participation, attention and cooperation. The information that flows through it relies not only on our participation but also databases, server rooms, hard drives and physical infrastructure. It is within these spaces that we maintain, update and adjust our relationships, their logistics and our emotional intimacies. Where we continuously become and perform ourselves, our identities, and reconfigure ourselves through technologies and with one another.

But how might we draw an image of the internet today? Through machines and software languages, or, through the effect of power relations and economics that regulate the flows of information through algorithmic protocols? From overhead satellites to underwater sea cables — network infrastructures and algorithmic software systems are as ubiquitous as they are invisible. Today’s internet infrastructures are complex adaptive systems; they encompass data centers, software protocols, mineral mines and assembly line workers; connecting the flow of information beaming from satellites to the smartphones in our hands.

We are firmly embedded within these structures — impacting our online-dating profiles, making transactions in financial markets, discerning our credit scores and optimising our cities, playing an increasing role in the exercise of power and the restructuring of society. These spaces are sites of endless flux and transformation enabled by hardware and software updates and intelligent algorithms that observe data and make decisions.

Land / Sea / Signal  brings together artists whose practice mediates on the materiality of internet infrastructure, and the complex socio-political conditions that are embedded within them. They offer insights into how we can imagine and unpick the complexities of living and seeing ourselves in technology. Through their practice we glimpse human connections, technological relationships and human experience to make evident how humans, technologies and our environment intersect.