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Melbourne’s Australian Centre for Contemporary Art (ACCA) launches its Digital Wing on 30 January 2023 with a new commission, Offset, by New York-based artists Tega Brain and Sam Lavigne and the Data Relations digital publication.
Artists Tega Brain and Sam Lavigne. Photograph: Hannah Jayanti. Courtesy the artists and Australian Centre for Contemporary Art, Melbourne
The Digital Wing is a flexible, iterative constellation of digital initiatives that reach out beyond the gallery walls, including artistic commissions, creative development, knowledge-sharing and publishing.
As the first artwork in the series, Offset poses questions on carbon offset markets through a online platform exploring social exchanges and political actions individuals can undertake to reduce emissions and earn carbon credits. The project also invites suggestions from visitors for the artists to explore and bring to life over the course of the year.
“For ACCA’s digital commission, we will launch the first stage of Offset: Version 0.1 of an alternative carbon offset market. In this market, historic direct political actions will be quantified and sold as carbon offsets. How might political work that slows or prevents combustion be recognised in carbon markets just like other biophysical efforts to reduce emissions?,” the artists ask.
Joining Offset in the Digital Wing, the Data Relations digital publication features texts by writers and academics addressing the art and ideas of artists included in the exhibition.
Excerpt from Digital Relations. Courtesy Australian Centre for Contemporary Art, Melbourne
Guest Curator Miriam Kelly’s curatorial essay considers the research and methodology undertaken in the development of Data Relations, while Atlanta-based writer Amy Hale takes readers through the shady Californian Ideology of Silicon Valley as explored in Zach Blas’ Metric mysticism.
London-based PHD researcher Yung Au tackles data’s relationship to the censorship, erasure and suppression of public information in Winnie Soon’s Unerasable characters series 2020-2022, and California-based academic Mashinka Firunts Hakopian explores themes of intimacy, control and autonomy in Lauren Lee McCarthy’s new installation and video work Surrogate, 2022.
