A######### I########### | YUTONG LIN

Yutong Lin
15.09 — 21.10 / 2023
L'œuvre Non-human Livestreaming de Yutong Lin est présentée dans le cadre de l'exposition I########### A###########

Opening reception : Friday, September 15, 2023 ‑ 5 p.m.

Non-human Livestreaming 

2022

Video, 9 min 10 s

 

Yutong Lin’s [they] work is about “Non-human Livestreaming” on Douyin, the Chinese equivalent of Tiktok. The video is inspired by Lawrence Lek’s video essay, Sinofuturism, which argues that Chinese digital technology frustrates the Eurocentric understanding of futurity, while also creating its own unsettling technological dystopia. 

The video refers to 24/7, AI or fake livestreaming. It dissects three key questions related to labor and affect: triviality, absurdity, and banality. These expand on the wide array of practices that cover “non-human” livestreaming and employ an open-ended structure, where the content is already exhausted and in excess of reality. When we see a video that only exists for its algorithmic data, what are we really watching?

Non-human Livestreaming exposes the alienation of media consumption culture. In this way, the (un)canny/(in)human conditions of the livestreaming arena make us reflect on our own impossible social relationships.

 

Photo credit: courtesy of the artist