World inside Cocoon


︎︎︎︎︎︎︎︎︎︎︎︎︎︎︎︎︎︎︎︎︎︎︎︎︎︎︎︎︎︎︎︎︎︎︎︎︎︎︎︎︎︎︎︎︎︎︎︎︎︎︎︎︎︎︎︎︎︎︎︎︎︎︎︎︎︎


2021
The visible and invisible world we all inhabit is becoming increasingly connected and often not in the familiar ways we imagine. The highly complex and interconnected matrix of communication and interaction technologies that control, archive and modulate the flows of material, labor, energy and all transactions and interactions consists of visible and invisible infrastructure. This network of nodes and flows form a cocoon within which contemporary life plays out.

If we contemplate the characteristics of this life-enabling cocoon, certain characteristics become apparent and which may be interesting to explore or at least contemplate upon: First, the realization that the systems that support these structures are either visible or invisible; second, that the conditions in which this occur are fluid and evolving; and third, that parts of these systems are deliberately obscured while other parts are rendered in a spectacular manner. This third observation seems intriguing. If the specter of our circulating cocoon is presented as a spectacle – then what lies in the shadow of such a strategy and who controls such a rendering? One can for example think of two very recent and on-going globally important events that contain all the characteristics of the spectacular: The recent Winter Olympics in China which a global audience could enjoy in real time or in a delayed fashion – but with performances measured in fractions of seconds, broadcasted virtually in spectacular moving images from multiple angles in a winter landscape that was for the most part, an artificial creation. The second example is the ongoing military operation in Ukraine where prior and during the war all aspects of the conflict were anticipated, recorded, mapped, shared and re-shared through a multitude of media technologies and platforms.

But every technology or system has its own inherent limitations or flaws. The very nature of ubiquitous technologies on a global scale raises questions about structure and agency that highlights questions about control, power and equitable access as much as questions of efficiencies and intelligence of systems that are caught between outdated worldviews and more liberal or emerging positions.

You lose the language & you lose the vibration.

The awakening of self-awareness is a strong response from the individuals. This awakening happened serval times in our history and was then boosted by the rapid development of general social wellness. The Renaissance sparked the fire, and the human rises to the center of the stage. A hundred years later, the Industrial Revolution started to manufacture commodities in a faster and easier way. Another hundred years later, the second Industrial Revolution pushed that further. Then it comes to the Digital Revolution and Industry 4.0.

These revolutions greatly stimulate both the needs and responses and brought enormous amounts of consumables at an unimaginative speed. As our society keeps bounding with the development of industry, People need to digest tons of information in a glimpse, the need for standardization of self- identification emerges.

Naturally, the definition of individuals becomes a playing house game. You choose what you use, what you wear, what you speak, then categorize yourself as a part of one genre.

Then you choose what to hear, and an emergency emerges, a dangerous tendency inherent. In most scenarios, you choose to hear echoes from your genre, then your response to these echoes, louder responses you will receive. You are trapped by your own echoes, your own definition.

Where does the collective agency and our individual agency exist and intersect in this spectacular cocoon that we have willingly, or unwillingly allowed to encapsulate us? How our desires and our fears, as much as our visions of a more equitable and enabling future relates with the things that we surround ourselves with in our everyday lives?

Ziming Wang

Contact me via Email.
Follow me on Instagram.





© 2022 / ZIMING WANG