Other Spring

2023

Exhibitions

1/2024 - 2/2024 - - Singapore Art Week 2024, - Objectifs, Singapore, Singapore
10/2023 - - The Interface Between Humanity and the Universe 3.0 天人之境 v3.0, - China Academy of Art, China, Shanghai Curated by Ziyang Wu
9/2023 - - Ars Electronica, Austria, Linz
5/2023 - - Elektra Virtual Museum, Canada, Montreal
5/2023 - - HMG, South Korea, Yongin

Other Spring (OS) is a theory-fiction world-building project.

Film snapshot: UNO

Film snapshot: OS Village

Brief

Other Spring" (OS) is a speculative worldbuilding project presented as a docufiction that critically examines the mediating effects of computational media, automation, and artificial intelligence on society and culture. The backdrop of the world is inspired by the ancient Chinese fable “The Peach Blossom Spring,” a story featuring a village shielded from famine, war, and strife thanks to its elusive and isolated nature. Through the design of the world of Other Spring, we explore an alternative path for the philosophy of technology, questioning our society’s current trajectory focused on efficiency, transactional interaction, and the infinite desire to quantify and make transparent the world we live in and create.

Film snapshot: UNO’s data-transferring network

Set in a not-too-distant future where the all-powerful AI-driven network UNO (Universal Network Observer) becomes the bedrock of reality, OS reflects the urgent need to restore the condition of cultivating agency and individuality in our ever-interconnected society.

In the world of this docufiction, the world is interpreted in ways that set each part apart from the other, based on the kind of technological layer it uses: UNO, a panoptic automated society run by Neural Network-powered artificial intelligence, and “the village” (aka Other Spring), a haven protected by H.A.Z.E from the network. The haze represents an intricate technical infrastructure of middleware and unique protocols embodying unconventional algorithmic design philosophies.

In this world, HAZE enables OS to stay invisible, allowing the village to retain individuality, heterogeneity, and cultures to coexist harmoniously.

The project blends reality with speculative fiction by combining media theory, cryptography, network engineering, and architectural theory. It does this in an attempt to challenge our understanding of information society and the power dynamics it brings.

The growing influence of algorithms over our lives and the erosion of privacy and agency underscore the urgency of rethinking our relationship with technology. OS fuses theory, creative technology usage, and the concepts of fog and haziness to demonstrate the potential of heretic computing and alternative algorithms. It challenges the dominant paradigm of functional equivalence and the logic of replacement, aiming to surpass the mechanistic-organic opposition and conceive a future for art and philosophy beyond the Enframing of modern technology. By reopening the question of the Unknown and the uncomputable, OS invites us to imagine alternative modes of co-existence with technology that resist the reduction of the world to a cybernetic system. It fosters a holistic, humane relationship with technology, rethinking progress and re-appropriating it to reopen the question of technodiversity and the multiplicity of modes of thinking.

“Other Spring”（简称OS）是一个理论向性的世界构建项目，以架空式记录片(docufiction)的形式呈现，批判性地审视计算媒体、自动化和人工智能对社会和文化的中介(mediating)效应。这个世界的背景灵感来自中国古代寓言"桃花源记"，故事讲述了一个村庄得益于其难以捉摸和与世隔绝的特性，免受饥荒、战争和动荡的影响。通过设计"Other Spring"的世界，我们探索了技术哲学的另一条道路，质疑我们当前社会专注于效率、交易互动以及无限渴望量化和透明化我们生活和创造的世界的轨迹。

故事设定在不久的将来，全能的AI驱动网络UNO（通用网络观察者）成为现实的基石，OS反映了在我们日益互联的社会中恢复培养能动性和个体性的迫切需要。在这个纪录片的世界中，取决于底层使用的技术构架，世界以不同的方式被展现：UNO，一个由神经网络驱动的人工智能运行的全景自动化社会；以及"村庄"（又名"Other Spring"），一个受到H.A.Z.E保护免受网络影响的避风港。迷雾代表了一个错综复杂的中间件和独特协议的技术基础设施，体现了非传统的算法设计理念。在这个世界中，HAZE使OS能够保持隐形，允许村庄保留个性、异质性和文化和谐共存。

该项目通过结合媒体理论、密码学、网络工程和建筑理论，将现实与思辨小说融合在一起，试图挑战我们对信息社会及其带来的权力动态的理解。算法对我们生活的影响日益增长，隐私和能动性的侵蚀凸显了重新思考我们与技术关系的紧迫性。OS融合了理论、创造性技术使用以及迷雾和朦胧的概念，展示了异端计算和替代算法的潜力。它挑战了功能等价的主导范式和替代逻辑，旨在超越机械-有机的对立，为艺术和哲学构想一个超越现代技术的"Enframing"的未来。

通过重新提出未知和不可计算的问题，OS邀请我们想象与技术共存的替代模式，抵制将世界简化为控制论系统。它促进与技术建立一种全面、人性化的关系，重新思考进步，重新利用进步来重新提出技术多样性和思维模式多样性的问题。

Other Spring shown at the exhibition “The Interface Between Humanity and the Universe 3.0” in Shanghai, China.