eteam’s Video Art Reflects on Our Pervasive Physical Entanglement with Technology
Review of December 2023 show of artists e-team at PS122 Gallery, New York City
December 8, 2023
Installation shot of ‘Our Non-Understanding of Everything’ (2023 - ongoing) by eteam, PS122 Gallery, New York City
In a world where so much of our activity involves consuming memes and viral content, it is sometimes hard to detach ourselves enough to be sufficiently cognizant of the pervasiveness of such technology. Technology may have enabled us to have achieved electronic cybernetics but human consciousness is not (yet) encased in a robotic body. Are we truly able to forget our physical body and animal instincts in our persistent use of technology? Artists Franziska Lamprecht and Hajoe Moderegger, who work as eteam, have created a 16-part video series that reflects on this entanglement of digital and analogue existence.
On view at PS122 Gallery as part of the show Semi-Conducting Hand-Held Moons through December 17, 2023, ‘Our Non-Understanding of Everything’ (2023 - ongoing), is the result of a collaborative study between eteam and artist collective lololol started in Taiwan during the Covid lockdown of 2021. eteam creates slick, sharply focused long takes in their videos coupled with high quality recordings of natural sounds, which are projected onto large screens in an immersive, enclosed setting. The work is a wry yet uncynical observation of staged animal encounters with technology.
eteam’s work is notable for the absence of mysterious symbols of nature, such as referenced by Laurent Grasso in ‘Anima’ (2022). There is no literal commentary on the collision between technology and nature as in the work of Hito Steyerl (‘This is the Future’ (2022), nor is it an objective observation of natural processes (‘Gras’ (2001) by Heike Baranowsky or ‘ Ocean II Ocean’ (2019) by Cyprien Gaillard). New York is the prominent background, with its native animals and cityscapes featured extensively, reminding us that outside of the Internet on one’s phone we exist in a physical place. The videos start out with high-angle frames of animals quietly sitting in snowy upstate New York. A frog floats on a semiconductor wafer against a backdrop of ice and snow. Single takes of iPads and iPhones on rocks and trees highlight the incongruous nature of these entities. The video rapidly skips through scenes of the moon, the Empire State Building and geometric night lights of the city. Interspersed are close-up long takes of snails, water bugs and worms as reluctant, slow-moving operators or stymied sidekicks of technological devices. They explore glassy surfaces of incessantly scrolling iPhones and iPads, or die on top of the wafers. The diegetic soundtrack references frog croaks, then shifts to ominous beats that match trembling imagery suggesting earthquakes.
eteam’s perspective invites the viewer to think about agency: is the slug that folds its body over the wafer’s surface exploring, or escaping? The images of buildings and technological devices remind us of the human manipulation required for these encounters to happen. The animals’ meandering interactions with the devices mirror our own; we are animals placed in a different physical situation but with similar animal reactions. It is unlikely the animals experience such mental dissociation as humans do. Can we claim control of our technology when we absent-mindedly scroll every 6 seconds to the next video or article?