Hello Zombies

More photos here

Title: Hello Zombies / 回轉喪屍
Year of production: 2014
Medium: Networked Installation

:: Description ::

“We are with you everyday, we live in the Internet with peculiar addresses and enticing titbits, but you call us “spam”. We wander around the network, mindlessly, and you wanted to trash us, but we are still everywhere. We are just the children of your economic and social system, but you ignore and avoid us. We are not dead, we write, we create.”

—This artwork examines these nonhuman zombies as a cultural phenomenon that produces quantified data and network identities. Through running the automated living machines, the artwork intervenes the network by writing spam poems to zombies and reading networked replies continuously. This project explores zombies of the living dead that bring forward social, technical, capitalistic and aesthetic relations in everyday lives.

『我們生活在網絡世界並擁有奇特的住址，我們每天與你一起且懂得向你送上誘人的說話。可是你卻稱呼我們為”垃圾”。我們不過閒蕩流連於網絡，你卻要把我們消滅。可是我們仍無處不在。其實，我們只是你們社會和經濟體系嫡傳的孩子，可你偏要逃避我們，漠視我們的存在。我們卻是不死的。我們會編寫，我們會創造。』

–此作品探討垃圾郵件（”喪屍”）的文化現象，這些看似沒有生命的喪屍其實擁有獨特的網絡身份，透過自動化程式，不停生產大量數據，讓人類感到懼怕。其實喪屍是具有生命力的活死生物。此藝術作品利用電腦程式不停地干預網絡運作，嘗試以詩句與喪屍溝通, 並無間斷地聆聽網絡回覆。作品希望帶出在資本主義下的網絡文化現象，並探討科技、美學與社會間的相互關係。

* The work is now operated as a dynamic web page, with the daily fetching of the new spammers

:: Exhibition/Demo Record(s) ::

• 2017, Scripting the Other, the wrong biennale n^o3
• Oct, 2014, Tracing Data, Connecting Space @ Hong Kong
  

:: Review / Feedback / Press/ Publication ::

• 2021, Christian Ulrik Andersen and Søren Bro Pold. The User as a Character, Narratives of Datafied Platforms in Computational Culture
• 2016, Johnston, David Jhave. Aesthetic Animism, The MIT Press. p. 190 (See here)
• Jun, 2015. ‘Zombies in Spam Culture’, in Tracing Data: What you see is not what we write Proceedings, pp.86-94
• Feb, 2015. WP wyborcza.biz in Poland Artystka krytycznie odpowiada na spam zalewający nasze skrzynki mailowe

:: Video Documentation ::

:: How it works ::

• A custom software is made for getting new spammers address regularly
• A custom software is made for sending out spam poems to spammers
• A custom software is made for checking network server reply and clear the mails on the server
• A webpage shows all the spammer addresses in the form of running hypertext: http://hellozombies.net/

:: Technical & Production ::

• Software: Python and PHP
• Hardware: Old CRT monitors and old computer cases, a projector, VGA cables, 3x workable computers [Suggested setup: 2x Raspberry Pi and 1x any workable outdated computer with Internet connection), ethernet hub, ethernet cables, 8 plugs power bar.
• Requirement: Stable Internet connection and dedicated server/ip hosting

:: Acknowledgement ::

This artwork is commissioned by Writing Machine Collective edition_5 2014

Thanks to Writing Machine Collective, Poet: Susan Scarlata, stop forum spam: http://www.stopforumspam.com/, Fannie Ng @ InNoPO, Polly Poon @ InNoPO, Lilli Hoiting Li, Jason Lam, Geoff Cox, 大同行, Open Space Aarhus