The Window is Ding Shiwei’s latest solo exhibition at 1000 Press in Hangzhou. The exhibition focuses on eight video installations entitled Borderman and an artist’s co-created fiction with ChatGPT, all created by the artist between 2022-2023. The exhibition title The Window not only refers to the display windows of the exhibition space but also to the eponymous novel and its essential elements, as well as the double-screen displays serving as viewing windows in the Borderman installation series.
Meanwhile, the eight video installations will collectively form a Panopticon. Eight life forms from the Metaverse hidden behind complex machines and programs will gaze at the audience at the center of the exhibition space and each other through the screen components of VR glasses. The screens display the fiery, shining red light, making it unclear whether the mapping originates from the real or virtual worlds.
In The Eye of Power: Foucault’s Interviews, Foucault emphasized a principle that Bentham proposed: “Power should be visible but unverifiable.” In 1984, Orwell imagined the “Telescreen” as a surveillance tool for the power apparatus. Today, 70 years later, every anonymous user has their own “window” – smartphones, computers, VR glasses, Etc. – eagerly and generously uploading private information, shaping disguise, initiating monitoring, and accepting surveillance. Power has become invisible and unverifiable, just like the messy wires on the exhibition floor and the chaotic “cremaster” in the novel, headless and traceless, emanating from the gaze of each user upon their “window”.