Experiment 5 — Related Works: PREMIUM CONNECT (2017)

Listen to this article

Background

As part of the Creation & Computation course, each student submitted 5 experiments in creative computing. To accompany our explorations, we were tasked with selecting one work or grouping of works (artwork, design project, research artifact, technology innovation, etc.) that was related to the theme or tools of the current experiment.

The theme for Experiment 5 was telepresence/remote presence.

The following post gives an overview of the work I selected, and how it relates to the theme. If you would like to see what I created for Experiment 5, check out my post on "The Emoting Lamps".

Description of the work

Premium Connect is a 13 min work by Tabita Rezaire, commissioned by Impakt @EMARE, Netherlands.

This work is also extended as a virtual reality experience for HTC Vive, commissioned the same year for UNREAL by NRW-Forum Düsseldorf Museum, Germany:

According to the Radiance VR website:

"PREMIUM CONNECT (REAL DEAL) takes us within a VR rendering of Google sea, where some internet users suspect to have found the location of  Atlantis, as the online oceanic map shows uncanny markings on the ocean bottom. Five portals harbour the VR abyss to allow the wonderers to experience the video PREMIUM CONNECT and receive the wisdoms of divination and information communication technologies from a landscape of African spirituality. PREMIUM CONNECT envisions a study of information and communication technologies (ICT), exploring African divination systems, the fungi underworld, ancestors communication and quantum physics to (re)think our information conduits."

Why or how this relates to issues in physical computing that are being investigated in Experiment 5

A central theme of this work is the function of ancestral and traditional memory, and how it relates to technology and computer memory. As one of the protagonists explains, we only live for one lifetime and can only remember so much as one human being, but by tapping into our collective and/or ancestral memory, we are able to connect to a worldwide web of sorts, where we access the memory of many lifetimes.

As the Pylon Hub so nicely explained:

"Embracing the idea that ICT acts as a mirror of the organic world, capable of healing or poisoning depending on its usage and users, PREMIUM CONNECT investigates the cybernetics spaces where the organic, technological and spiritual worlds connect. How can we use biological or esoteric systems to fuel the technological process of information, control and governance? Overcoming the organism/spirit/ device dichotomies, this work explores spiritual connections as communication networks and the possibilities of decolonial technologies.

Contrary to Eurocentric-biased thinking, our information superhighway might find its roots in African spirituality. Significant research attributes the birth of computing sciences to African divination systems such as the Ifa system of the Yoruba people of East Africa, which appears to be the origin of binary mathematics, today the functioning principle of computing sciences. Once again, the origin of knowledge has been erased in favour of Western achievements.

We have much to recover in terms of connectivity and its potentialities. As science recently discovered the role of underground fungi networks used by plants to communicate and transfer information, ancient traditions have long known how to communicate with nature and download its knowledge. Meanwhile, our cherished technologies are the results of institutional violence and until now reproduce them continually.

This study of dynamic networks from artificial, spiritual and biologic environments digs into the politics of possibilities, where a mystico-techno-consciousness could nurture a mind- body-spirit-technology symbiosis."

As the Pylon Hub aptly puts it:

"Tabita Rezaire uses her “digital healing activism” to challenge existing colonial power structures through the world wide web. Rezaire’s cross-dimensional works, video-installations and exhibitions are expressions of an urge to heal an overall present disconnect as a modern phenomenon. Her work and healing strategies aim to reconnect body, uterus-mind and spirit in order to rehabilitate the repressive colonial hierarchies of the knowledge systems that define the dominant narratives of our present. Rezaire as a self-proclaimed “infinity incarnated into an agent of healing” strives to activate healing processes as a domino-effect of regenerating oneself.

In her artistic practice, Rezaire investigates anti-colonial self-healing through the power of technology. Her work navigates through the structures of power and addresses the ubiquitous matrix of coloniality and its impact on knowledge, technology, sexuality and spirituality."

To learn more about the connection between Yoruba Ifa Divination and Computer Science, I definitely recommend looking into the following paper: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/259962837_A_Comparative_Study_of_Ifa_Divination_and_Computer_Science 

Creator of the work

Tabita Rezaire (b.1989) is a digital media artist, health-tech-politics practitioner, and Kemetic/Kundalini Yoga teacher who uses art as a means to unfold the soul. Her work investigates the impact of hierarchies embedded in technological systems on sexuality and spirituality, and the effort towards decolonization. Her cross-dimensional practices envision network sciences – organic, electronic and spiritual – as healing technologies to serve the shift towards heart consciousness.

Navigating digital, corporeal and ancestral memory as sites of resilience, she digs into scientific imaginaries to tackle the pervasive matrix of coloniality and the protocols of energetic misalignments that affect the songs of our body-mind-spirits. Inspired by quantum and cosmic mechanics, Tabita’s work is rooted in time-spaces where technology and spirituality intersect as fertile ground to nourish visions of connection and emancipation. More precisely, her work seeks to draw links between different spiritual practices and the artist’s own personal experiences as a call to action against the hegemonic frameworks of the digital era.

Abstaining from any formative boundaries, Rezaire dissects the hidden paradigms and forces a critical engagement with her own artistic means. Through collective offerings and screen interfaces, she reminds us to open our inner data centers to bypass western authority and download directly from the source.

Tabita currently lives and works in Cayenne, French Guyana. She holds a Bachelor in Economics (Paris, France) and a Master of Research in Artist Moving Image from Central Saint Martins (London, UK). Tabita is a founding member of the artist group NTU, half of the duo Malaxa, and the mother of the energy house SENEB.

Tabita has shown her work internationally at the Centre Pompidou, Paris; Serpentine London; MoMa NY; New Museum NY; MASP, Sao Paulo; Gropius Bau Berlin; MMOMA Moscow, Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago; ICA London; V&A London; National Gallery Denmark; The Broad LA; MoCADA NY; Tate Modern London; Museum of Modern Art Paris – and contributed to several Biennales such as the Guangzhou Triennial, Athens Biennale, Kochi Biennale (2018); Performa (2017); and Berlin Biennale (2016).

Works Cited / Bibliography

Alamu, Femi, Halleluyah Aworinde, and Walter Isharufe. 2013. “A Comparative Study of Ifa Divination and Computer Science.” INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF INNOVATIVE TECHNOLOGY AND RESEARCH Volume No. 1 (November): 524–28.

Artsy. n.d. “Tabita Rezaire | Premium Connect (2017).” Accessed December 8, 2020. https://www.artsy.net/artwork/tabita-rezaire-premium-connect

Goodman Gallery. 2019. “Tabita Rezaire.” Goodman Gallery. 2019. https://www.goodman-gallery.com/artists/tabita-rezaire 

Pylon Hub. 2019. “PREMIUM CONNECT / PREMIUM CONNECT (Real Deal) - Tabita Rezaire.” Pylon Hub. 2019. https://pylon-hub.com/hub/article/premium-connect-real-deal 

Radiance - VR Art. 2017. “Tabita Rezaire.” Radiance - VR Art. 2017. https://www.radiancevr.co/artists/tabita-rezaire/

Rezaire, Tabita. 2017a. PREMIUM CONNECT (REAL DEAL) - VR Extract. Virtual Reality. https://vimeo.com/235344647

———. 2017b. PREMIUM CONNECT. HD Video. https://vimeo.com/247826259

———. n.d. “Info.” Tabita Rezaire. Accessed December 8, 2020a. https://www.tabitarezaire.com/info.html

———. n.d. “Offering.” Portfolio. Tabita Rezaire. Accessed November 25, 2020b. https://www.tabitarezaire.com/offering.html