somewhere4u.net

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English & Korean versions available

You have to find out the disappearing data and make it into your own hum.

〈somewhere4u.net〉 addresses the collective amnesia of the internet age and nostalgia that exists only in big data, exploring ways to return memories to being fully personal. The work reproduces an online community the artist was active in during the early 2000s in a virtual time and space. Players become a member of the online community 'somewhere4u.net' named 'Candie'. The atmosphere of the spacetime players explore has the 'pixel aesthetic' of early 2000s websites, but the actual map is three-dimensional, not two-dimensional, clearly stating that it is not the early 2000s but the present. This is because a new spacetime is created the moment one visits a past spacetime. This spacetime exists somewhere in the universe as it was, and users explore it through the senses of 'Candie'. However, memories tend to blur, and the changes in time and space are intertwined, so the spacetime keeps changing even if 'Candie' goes to another room for a moment. Only the sound accumulates, leaving visual elements as afterimages. Interacting with objects triggers sounds, which harmonize with more interactions, and as 'Candie' accumulates experiences, they become melodies that linger. After sufficiently exploring, logging out causes this spacetime to disappear into the universe, and the game ends.

 

Transforming the web's two-dimensional space into three dimensions symbolizes the sensory changes brought about by digital media, not just replication. Since the internet became widespread, we've gradually started to see the mouse and keyboard as extensions of our limbs, avatars as extensions of our selves, and the internet world as an extension of spacetime and neighbors. In the work, as we've conceptualized and verbalized, players 'enter' forums and 'leave' chat rooms, moving through dynamic spacetime with a mouse cursor, not a static screen. The drawings in the 'Oekaki' room within the work are produced by AI, often referencing the 'retro aesthetic' of stock image sites. The blurry memories and AI-reconstructed spacetime are somewhat abstract, devoid of presence, where nostalgia and trauma coexist. Kim Eum (2021) regards the 'transitional spacetime or the boundary of different social worlds operating under different norms' as 'Liminal Space', where the image of this spacetime makes the observer mobilize their own experience and memory, appearing as a sense of loss that feels like one could form a different relationship due to separation, yet it's irretrievable. 〈somewhere4u.net〉 reproduces the boundaries between past and present, flat and multidimensional, physical spacetime and virtual spacetime, human and non-human, prompting players to question the existence and purpose of this spacetime.

 

The work presents 'humming' as a consolation for loss and a positive outlook towards nostalgia. Musical taste is more personal and independent than other media. Our accumulated tastes and experiences are internalized as vibrations and melodies we hum without thought. Even if most people remain consumers in an era where the meanings of 'creation' and 'production' are negated, this might be a means to preserve our uniqueness, because we can ourselves be instruments, relatively free from physical records. Whenever desired, one can hum in their own way.

 

Furthermore, sound is the medium that best matches the concept of 'spacetime'. Sound is more sensitive to changes in time than visual media, is perceived through space, and disperses into the air once played. However, when sound repeats and overlaps, becoming a 'melody', it leaves a stronger impression on the memory. If players continue to hum the melodies they've accumulated after experiencing the work and leaving the exhibition, they truly become the owners of those memories.