How to appear offline forever

How to appear offline forever/ Sebastien Schmeig

With only a little more than a third of the world’s population having access to the internet, teams at Facebook and Google are working on ambitious projects that aim to put big swarms of drones and balloons high up into the sky that would allow more people to connect to the internet and to take part in digital life.

“How to appear offline forever” takes these endeavours and the internet drone as the starting point for two intertwined stories happening in different places:

Here, Silicon Valley hi-tech entrepreneur who can only live up to the Californian idea through the visionary and extraordinary, dedicated to creating the next big thing which might reach into even the most remote corner, into our bodies and even into space, clearly believing to make the world a better place.

There, the new user, logging onto the internet from another world a.nd another time, maybe even for the very first time, with hopes and enthusiasm. Is this the start of a new meme, a new aesthetic, a new community?

The drones, too far up in the sky to be visible, care little about the new user. Finally on the digital map, drawn in Silicon Valley, the new user is becoming a new node in the ever-expanding network, a new profile, fresh data on the platforms’ hard-drives, ready to be mined. Eventually, the new user enters a state of always-on. A question arises and is formulated as a search: how to appear offline forever?

You can experience the project online here.

Artist’s Bio:

Sebastian Schmieg examines the ways modern technologies shape online and offline realities, in artworks that range from interactive sculptures to video experimentation with generative algorithms.