Tech-tonic shifts
Influential algorithms
The internet has introduced words, images and concepts that did not exist before. Shao Chun's installation Inner Beads (2025), for instance, is informed by her research into the traces of internet ghosts left behind on social media. Paradoxically, the shape of this elaborate, intricately detailed and yet extremely spare piece gains substance only when viewed together with the shadows it casts on the floor. Using fishing wire, beads, tiny bells, silicone fabric, synthetic hair, eyelashes, wasted cosmetics and a lab flask, Shao has "composed an abstract 'image' of a scattered and/or absent body" that throbs with vitality, goading viewers into imagining the missing bits.
Payne Zhu's video installation Reverse-rendering (2022) invites viewers to reflect on user behavior, consumption patterns and the fragmented nature of online experiences. It shows a continuous stream of images scrolling upwards. When the speed of scrolling "surpasses the processing speed of digital imaging, the visuals begin to glitch".
Also underscoring how social media algorithms influence consumer behavior is Li Hanwei's Sneeze (2023/2025) — a physical reconstruction of an internet clip showing a car crashing into a public toilet that went viral.
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