Yuqiao Ding
Digital Isolation Museum
Prompt: We live in a unique, challenging, and ever-changing time of our lives. There are immense shifts that are happening every minute, and in these moments, we want to remember the histories, the actions, the work that we do in ways to be commemorated. What do you want to say and preserve for the future? How would a digital museum of our time impact the future and the current state of things? What and how do you want to be remembered? Through your call to a more just and equitable future? Or through your vision of design, storytelling, and fiction? Or through a process of play do you want to think through?
When I considered the assignment, I started my thought about our generation and hoped to find some phenomenons or issues which can be representations or characteristics of our generation. I notice that we are in the digital era. We rely on data to run lots of works and digital equipment. However, from my perspective, digital equipment has a fatal temptation to people. I find people are isolated and are exceedingly indulged in the digital world. For example, when they use mobile phones, they tend to be more willing to communicate on Ins rather than face to face communication. When they use mobile phones, they tend to ignore surrounding events. Isolation accompanies us forever, but now, our isolation is caused by the digital world. I firstly drew two illustrations to reflect this phenomenon. I used comparative colors to form a visual crashing. There are monsters which have weird appearance and eyes. They are my imagination of temptation from digital equipment. They are composed of data. I used clay to pinch these monsters appearing in my illustrations. I made them so small that they seem not very aggressive. There are thousands of monsters in my museum, and visitors can take them away. I also did some interaction with these monsters. They pulled my eyelids, and I became a “fearful monster”. “When you indulge in the digital world, monsters eroding your spirits, and you become part of them.” That is what I want to express. I hope people can realize these problems after visiting my museum. Our spirits will not be eroded!
