CV07｜Library of Babel
"In the seven days depicted in Genesis, if the *Flood* reshaped the geological pattern of the human homeland and reduced the number of species to the smallest unit, then the legend of the *Tower of Babel* offers a theological explanation for the splitting of individuals from one to many."
The language itself is a set of instructions with uniform decoding and encoding, and its externalized forms are much richer than we think. From Bible stories to social media, from telepathy to brain-computer interface, from linguistics to psychology, the exhibition “Babel Library” is Zhang Handuo’s further practice in the direction of human language communication after his previous work “Celo: Mirror of the Mind” created around brain wave induction.
In Hebrew, “babel” means chaos, and God found that humans were trying to break the original agreement, so he disrupted the language system that is the basis of human cooperation. In Babylonian, “babel” means the gate of God. In his short story The Library of Babel, Borges imagined an endless hexagonal library – a cosmic structure made up of countless books and shelves.
About Artists
Zhang Handuo, born in Shenyang in 1994, holds a bachelor’s degree in Film and Integrated Media from Emilie Carr University of Art and Design and a Master’s degree in Digital Narrative from the International Film School of Cologne. He has lived in North America, Europe and China. Much of his work is rooted in the individual’s relationship with himself, with the external environment, and with others, and has explored themes such as memory, death, and language. He often uses different media to serve different themes, and has used text, video, games, brain computer interface, NFT, etc.
Guided Tour
Online Discussion
Topic: What impact will Web3.0 have on human connection?
Index:
01:43 Around the theme of Babel, you talk about your own practical experiences and opinions about connecting people in web3.
13:16 When the water is clear, there is no fish. Does web3’s enhancement of the connection between people also bring about certain alienation to some extent?
20:02 The ultimate productivity of human beings is creativity. When artistic creation takes place in web3, will it produce new aesthetics that only belong to this social system?
31:50 Question session, about the collision between creators and new technologies and even new industries
Guest Speaker:
Dora Lin (Curator of crypto Art and Member of TingDAO Core Operations)
Cong Yunfeng (artist and early practitioner of cross-border combination of art and blockchain)
Doris (Co-founder of A/V GALLERY)