promising.space

On interactive digital spaces, astro bodies, and making art within the periphery of HTML. A conversation between curator Bonnie Lee and Susu on the occasion of Susu’s Window Online exhibition.

Susu, promising.space (still), 2021, website. Courtesy of the artist and Window

Let there be a flying object, be you. You are leaving the ground, accelerating steadily and lifting up in the sky marking a graceful curve. You reach a point in the air and start heading towards the land, again in a steady fashion. Making a perfect downward curve, you have completed your travel, carved out in the air is a perfect half-ring.

You have crossed from Place A to Place B. The flight was a success, the moment you reach the point of the vertex of the curve, you have arrived, as you have departed. You did not depart until you have reached that point, nor have you arrived before then. The purpose of this action is irrelevant, at least for now, perhaps it is what you wished to answer as you made the decision to enter this journey. The journey can be understood as an action that’s both the question and the answer. There was a call to go on, to depart and arrive. You don’t know what it is yet, but before you understand it, the action must be taken first. I would describe promising.space as looking into this "journey” in question, one that has brought you to the place of the present, but you knew all along that in this place lies the answer to this journey.

— Susu

Susu, promising.space (still), 2021, website. Courtesy of the artist and Window

Bonnie Lee: How did the context of the web—your space to occupy as an artist defined by HTML as opposed to the bounds of gallery walls—inform this exhibition?

Susu: When I was thinking about doing an online exhibition, I wanted to make an interactive digital space that still requires active labour to experience, similar to a game but on a smaller scale. And so I made this map, or this space, that you sort of just crash into without really knowing what it is. But in some ways, your task (if this is a game and you have a task to complete) is to try and understand why you’re here and why you arrived.

The internet can be quite a passive place. What about the title? To be “promising” is to show signs of future success, an inherently personal definition, but when followed by the word “space” it removes that human quality. 

The title came when I was looking at domain extensions (.net, .com, etc.) and thought the extension of “space” is a really fun one, somehow tying in the physical attributes of spatial construction within a digital environment. 

I have been looking at resources on the ethics of space travelling, and I thought the departure from our original planet being framed as researching towards a “better humanity,” or a “better future,” was interesting. Most of those who can bring an extraterrestrial future to us seem to be more focused on the commercialisation of space activities, rather than thinking about the ethics of such events. 

How has your previous work influenced the production of promising.space? Does this work take a new direction, or has your practice always addressed similar themes?

A shift in my practice occurred during the first lockdown in 2020, when I started experimenting with digital renderings and 3D modelling. I made a digital pop star called Q_t, and produced a series of paintings and rendered a music video for them. From then, I started committing to digital mediums more so than before.

At the beginning of 2021 my cats Coco and Lovelove passed away. I then made an artwork named after them—a 3D rendered moving image playing on a TV, embedded in a concrete rock structure. It was a therapeutic process; and led to another shift as I realised I can actually talk to myself in a genuine manner and translate that into making, which is something that I hadn’t really explored in my process before. 

I think promising.space is an extension of these previous works, where conversations with myself feel natural and writings occur at an enjoyable pace. I learnt how to write HTML for the development of promising.space, which has been a really new and fascinating process, like learning a new language.

How do you situate your practice within the wider context of the world? Are you informed by any principles—philosophical, political, or other?

I came across an interview where the artist was really fixated on the idea of digital transcendence, such as a personal projection or a symbolic descendant of a character, realised as an “avatar” in digital environments. This was an appropriated idea from the Hindu scripture Bhagavad Gita, which originally was referring to the divine incarnations of Vishnu, extending beyond mortal materiality for the purpose of protecting the maintenance of dharma (the righteous ordinance of the universe). 

This sparked my thinking and I began questioning whether I agree with the artist’s view, whether “a digital descend or transcendence” is an accurate expression of the experience, especially when it is an appropriated idea (by an American man), and has the power to alter how one perceives digital entities. If I were to take on this notion of digital transcendence, every time I enter a game I should feel an immersion that goes beyond comprehension. I should feel a transcendental value that ultimately lifts me from attaching to the material reality. But it was all still so physical to me, looking into the screen.

Susu, promising.space (still), 2021, website. Courtesy of the artist and Window

As shapeless and invisible (in some ways) as computer systems are, they are still physical entities with calculations and signals based on the same laws of physics as everything else. But such systems are seen as beyond materiality since little attention is actually being paid to the way we utilise them. For one, systems such as data extractivism, and political, corporal use of digitised assets, are entrenched in the need for digital labour. Without users, these systems wouldn’t be able to function, profit, or maintain themselves. Participation in digital environments should be seen as labour; production is happening and so are capital activities, so are human activities. 

While online or digital activities are being understood as having escapism value, we are perhaps too fixated on the idea of being able to quickly experience other worlds. Computer systems still occupy the laws of physics to operate, basing everything on physical calculations, yet it is unlikely for all to truly understand or comprehend exactly what is being done in front of their eyes. Therefore the system becomes obsolete, still physical yet invisible from most views, like magic. It is our minds that, when not being able to fully comprehend the observed, will then by default describe things as beyond materiality, as having transcendental values.

Looking into a digital space, when you are trying to merge your thoughts with a narrative being presented to you—or when you unconsciously put yourself into a mind state of a game, a song, or a movie—there is first a belief that occurs, an embrace of a new structure or system; and a willingness to be (temporarily) immersed in this belief. 

Susu, promising.space (still), 2021, website. Courtesy of the artist and Window

You say this work is “...looking at ways materials and language inhabit digital spaces in a stable yet fragile consistency.” Can you explain what you mean by that?

I was borrowing the idea of texts and images taken out of context, destroyed or transformed in a digital environment with a few clicks. Yet on the other hand, they have the strength to preserve their context on a collective (relational) level. During the trading of these digital entities, where time and context collapse rapidly, they can become quickly irrelevant or inherently relevant based on the user or experience 

The presentation of text in this work plays with this idea. Some are taken from larger texts, broken up into pieces and losing their solid structure, to be seen as individual sentences and read without context. 

What do you have coming up? 

I am finishing my study next year and am interested to see where my practice develops. I have been working on a moving image installation with my besties Qianhe ‘AL’ Lin, Qianye Lin and JingCheng Zhao. I am really excited about this, and working collectively with my friends/flatmates is really wonderful.

Susu, promising.space (still), 2021, website. Courtesy of the artist and Window

Susu, promising.space (still), 2021, website. Courtesy of the artist and Window

Susu, promising.space (still), 2021, website. Courtesy of the artist and Window

Enter and view the artwork via the Window website

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