DO YOU BELIEVE?
Interactive web-based artwork
DO YOU BELIEVE?
Interactive web-based artwork
”Do you believe?” Peter Pan asked about fairies. “If you do, clap your hands!”
Do you believe? uses a web browser add-on to search for images by responding to the sound of a hand clap. With each clap, an image with animated wings appears and floats around a screen for a few seconds before fading away. The more claps, the more appear, resulting in a screen full of fluttering images. When the clapping stops, they all disappear. Interested in the nature of socially constructed reality where value is maintained by collective belief, such as crypto currency, and currency in general, Erica Sklenars was reminded of the Peter Pan film of her childhood, where a fairy would die every time someone said they didn’t believe in them. In one scene, when a fading Tinker Bell is dying after drinking poisoned medicine, Peter breaks the fourth wall imploring the viewer to clap their hands if they believe in fairies to save her.
Creative coder - Will Sklenars
Commissioned by The chronicle of < _______ >
The chronicle of < a new love order > at The Engine Room, Massey University.
Photos by Phoebe Mackenzie and Ted Black
The work was commissioned by The chronicle of < _______ > for the exhibition The chronicle of < a new love order >, shown during the Aotearoa Digital Arts Network 2024 symposium Rising Algorithms: Navigate, Automate, Dream.
< a new love order >
“I call this number, for a data date, I don’t know what to do, I need a rendezvous” – Computer Love (1981), Kraftwerk
From the dance floor to the dating app, computer technology has played an important role in servicing our emotional needs and desires for decades. Now with rapid advancements in AI, this emotional dependency has become enmeshed in our digital everyday in ways that are hard to notice and understand. The chronicle of < a new love order > prompts a conversation on computer mediated emotional states through a range of artworks and contributions from AI. Works address topics such as … sexual identity and social acceptance, IRL replicants and online avatars, algorithms and desire ….
Miranda Bellamy and Amanda Fauteux
Simon Endres (Ngāpuhi)
Kat Lang
Shannon Novak
Erica Sklenars