DIGGERMODE

Australia, 2022

Commissioned by ACMI

Artwork ACMI commissions First Nations

“Tracing the material and cultural implications of extraction and storage, DIGGERMODE is a generative behind-the-servers look into how memory works within platform capitalism.”

DIGGERMODE questions the social and environmental ethics of technology in constructing, storing and sharing our images, whether in surveillance databases, museum archives or online. With artificial intelligence (AI), Joel Sherwood Spring has created landscapes in the style of acclaimed Arrernte artist Albert Namatjira being torn apart by mining machinery, and has trained another AI to answer questions like “Who’s your Mob?” Presumably, anyone could do this – but should anyone be able to appropriate Indigenous art from the internet? How do we protect our knowledges in digital spaces? Can sand used to make silicon microchips contain memories of Country?

Joel’s work confronts the viewer with uncomfortable and overlooked aspects of our hyper-networked age, grounding the possibilities of ‘the cloud’ and AI in the broader context of ongoing colonisation. The work considers the environmental damage caused by new technology and data storage, and how it is Indigenous peoples whose lands and ways of being are profoundly impacted by capitalism’s extractive processes.

Videographer: Akil Ahamat

Script advisor: Enoch Mailangi

Sound production: Bridget Chappelle

This work contains First peoples content

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This work is not a single channel linear video and thus cannot be effectively shown online.

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Collection

In ACMI's collection

Previously on display

19 February 2023

ACMI: Gallery 4

Credits

artist

Joel Sherwood Spring

Duration

00:28:50:13

Production places
Australia
Production dates
2022

Collection metadata

ACMI Identifier

Z000199

Language

English

Subject category

Digital Art

Curatorial section

How I See It: Blak Art and Film → Zone 6

Sound/audio

Sound

Colour

Colour

Measurements

28 min 51 sec

Object Types

Artwork

Materials

Two-channel video installation

Collected

5936 times

Please note: this archive is an ongoing body of work. Sometimes the credit information (director, year etc) isn’t available so these fields may be left blank; we are progressively filling these in with further research.

Cite this work on Wikipedia

If you would like to cite this item, please use the following template: {{cite web |url=https://acmi.net.au/works/121854--diggermode/ |title=DIGGERMODE |author=Australian Centre for the Moving Image |access-date=13 October 2024 |publisher=Australian Centre for the Moving Image}}