4 Tactile Poetic Digital Sculptures
depicting Data Colonialism
Currently on display in Sensing Naples at Compton Verney (April 2023 to April 2025)
Commissioned by Compton Verney and Unlimited, this artwork represents a postcolonial analysis of DYSPLA’s relationship with the current military and past colonial occupation of Cyprus in relation to the modern theory of Data Colonialism. Inspired by Lorenzo Vaccaro’s 17th-century busts of The Four Continents, DYSPLA have created four performative Digital Sculptures in the form of 7,000 individual pieces of A3 neon green copy paper.
Commissioned by Compton Verney and Unlimited, this artwork represents a postcolonial analysis of DYSPLA’s relationship with the current military and past colonial occupation of Cyprus in relation to the modern theory of Data Colonialism. Inspired by Lorenzo Vaccaro’s 17th-century busts of The Four Continents, DYSPLA have created four performative Digital Sculptures in the form of 7,000 individual pieces of A3 neon green copy paper.
SPECIFICATION
Artist: DYSPLA (Lennie Varvarides, Kazimir Bielecki)
Title: colonialism_V1
Year: 2024
Digital Sculptures: 4 x .gITF, 78mb (approx.)
Film: 4 x 5min (approx.), 4k, .mp4
A3 paper stack: 7000 sheets of dayglo green paper, 279x420x800mm
Billboard posters: 12 x (1x15m) blue backed billboard paper, 130gsm
Artist: DYSPLA (Lennie Varvarides, Kazimir Bielecki)
Title: colonialism_V1
Year: 2024
Digital Sculptures: 4 x .gITF, 78mb (approx.)
Film: 4 x 5min (approx.), 4k, .mp4
A3 paper stack: 7000 sheets of dayglo green paper, 279x420x800mm
Billboard posters: 12 x (1x15m) blue backed billboard paper, 130gsm
ARTISTS: DYSPLA (Lennie Varvarides & Kazimir Bielecki)
PERFORMERS: Ozioma Ihesiene (Verse 1), Maryam Noorhimli (Verse 2),
Laiza Silva Goncalves (Verse 3), Lennie Varvarides (Verse 4)
DYSPLA’s new commission represents a poetic postcolonial analysis of Lennie Varvarides’ (DYSPLA Founder) connection to colonialism as a British Cypriot. The work highlights the relationship between the current military and past colonial occupation of Cyprus, in relation to the current theory of Data Colonialism.
“This artwork represents the technocratic homogenization of historic culture and its perpetuation through Data Colonialism in the form of data extraction, Surveillance Capitalism and unipolar political suffocation. By creating an ‘us and them’ narrative between the Orthodox Chritsian and Islamic inhabitants of the country of Cyprus, the Mediterranean elites, with the aid of western superpowers, divided the dream of an independent island. The divide and rule tactic leading to a depletion of nuance allowed for a system of control contrary to the political direction democratically building within the nation around the 1974 invasion. We suggest that binary nature of control within digital culture, explained with the works of ‘The age of Surveillance Capitalism’ by Shoshana Zuboff and ‘The Costs of Connection’ by Nick Couldry and Ulises A. Mejias, is mirrored within our artist’s, Lennie Varvarides, experience of the colonisation of her native country. The homogenisation of Cypriot culture with neighbouring countries, Greese and Turkey has led to a depletion of historic Cypriot culture. Data Colonialism is leading to the depletion of nuance embedded within our species. The study of neurodiversity and the evolutionary theory of Complimentary Cognition of Dr Helen Taylor has highlighted the necessity of diversity for survival. This artwork hopes to allow for a continuation of the conversation.”
The physical sculpture takes the form of 7,000 pieces of A3 neon green copy paper. The digital performative sculptures are activated via a QR Code in true DYSPLA style, developed by Kazimir Bielecki (DYSPLA Creative Director and Producer). Each A3 print includes 4 volumetric portraits, (3D), of the descendants reciting one verse of a poem written by Lennie Varvarides.
The opportunity to take an A3 print home poses another question — how willing will the audiences be to participate in this extraction when the prints are limited? This calls attention further to modern forms of colonization such as surveillance capitalism.
The work playfully provokes the concept of a colonizer as someone who takes something they consider free regardless of depleting resources or consequence.Read Full Article by Lennie Varvarides by clicking link here.