Digital Afterlife
In the cult classic horror movie, The Ring (2002), the character Sadako creates a murderous videotape. I see this as an act of reinvention; reinvention of what is believed to be the core of every human being – the soul. By transferring part of herself into a videotape, she lived on after her death and her presence was spread through viralism. Sadako conducted a form of soul-digitalisation and with it, gained digital immortality.
With the saturation of the digital in our lives, we continually reduce and encode our identities as words and images on a screen. This constitutes a gradual reconstruction of our humanity, evolving it into a human-machine hybrid. The human-machine embodiment allows us to break physical rules. Even in death, our digital selves live on, continuing to leave traces and imprints within the online world.
“Digital Afterlife” is an exploration of digital immortality, told through a series of moving image portraits and costume designs. Inspired by unconventional materials and distortion of human form, “Digital Afterlife” is an attempt to imagine and recreate the dark human recesses of the internet.
The initial manifestation of this project was created in collaboration with Nathanael Brooks.
About Shawn Soh
Shawn Soh is a Singaporean visual artist and film maker. He recently graduated from Central Saint Martins, BA Graphic Design and was awarded DesignCurial “Graduates to Watch 2015.” Shawn is also the Co-Artistic Director of PIGDOG Productions, and is endorsed by the University of the Arts London SEED Fund.
Other notable work includes: Curious Festival with the Barbican; Roberts Wood for London Fashion Week 2016; EL:XR for Bloomberg Space; BOAT at TheatreN16; BLAME at Burdall’s Yard and Mother Courage at Drama Centre London. Shawn’s work has been featured in: Dazed and Confused, Wired, IdN, 1Granary, SHOWStudio, Blueprint, Complex and Prote.in.